echo of all ways (эхо дорог, eng)
A dinner party was coming to an end, and the only thing that went smoothly that evening was the way cars drove away when it was over. Some didn't get enough food, some stood by the lake all evening trying to get attention of ducks sleeping in bushes with bits of slightly dried-up brownies. At one point, everyone suddenly began to leave in a hurry - turned out that L. had broken some antique couch when he, according to my friend, tried to literally plop himself into the conversation of three rich women.
- It looked like a predictable ending to a drum solo that no one expected, said my friend D. He and I met in a theater in Kazakhstan, and now we both were part of an art residency in the States.
Without saying goodbye in person, everyone began to disperse into seven-seat cars.
- See you in a bar in half an hour, someone shouted so that 40 people could hear.
- Am I the only one going home? - I don't remember if I said that to myself or out loud, but no one was paying attention, so I slowly moved towards the only car that was left, the one I drove here. At the art residence, we had been given three rental cars for each house. I was to drive 20 miles alone at night across unfamiliar Long Island. I grinned, remembering that a year ago, I'd had a Long Island cocktail for my birthday, and this year I'd celebrated it here. I started the car, and it turned the radio on as a way of polite greeting.
I had gotten my driving license a year and a half before that summer, but during that period, I had only gotten behind the wheel of my grandfather's mechanical Niva when we went to our summer house. There were no dead-end roads in our neighborhood, so I could drive around in circles. With each repetitive turn, my actions became more and more automatic, and my grandfather's comments more and more infrequent. I liked to watch the stares of passersby who watched me driving a Russian car, it gave me a vague sense of self-confidence. After a while, I would go into a mode of unconscious competence and start talking and even joking around.
This time there was no one to talk to, and the highway demanded my full attention. The trucks were honking, the open-top Ferraris were leaving my mini-van behind, and the lights were blinding. I watched the scene as if it were a movie, as if it were a projector pointed inside me.
- Thank you for being on the same radio wave as us. Do you remember what you were doing in the summer of 2007? - The radio host asked. - No? I'm sure you will when you hear the next song.
- Big girls don't cry, Fergie sang on the radio. I exhaled loudly.
In the summer of 2007, I realized for the first time that I had grown up and stopped going out to play with my friends in the yard, even though I was 11 years old. And in spite of all the "in spite of’s”, I began to disidentify with all things childish. Twelve years later, I'm an adult, thousands of miles away from home, trying to remember what made me want to grow up as fast as possible.
I opened the windows halfway. The smell of freshness from the proximity of big water mixed with gasoline and road dust filled the car instantly, making my perfume uncompetitive. Open windows have always made me feel freer than I am.
However, my sense of inner freedom quickly faded when I noticed that my phone only had 25 percent of battery power left on it, and I had at least half an hour to drive. What if I get lost? I will run out of gas. I'd have to go back, but that would be even worse, because I was already having trouble finding that house. That's okay, I'll follow the signs and markings and I'll get somewhere. What if the car breaks down again, like it did two weeks ago? Jacob, a German painter 9 months a year and carpenter in residence every summer, then said the Dodges were toys compared to the German cars when he was fixing my car. Maybe I should stop at a coffee shop and ask for a charger? - all of that flashed through my mind in a split second, but I kept driving. Somewhere in my heart I knew that everything was going to be okay, because I had long nurtured the belief that everything was going to work out the best for me.
- I always know where I'm going. - I repeated like a mantra several times. Always, always? – echoed in my skeptical mind.
- Go straight for the next 5 kilometers, I heard my GPS say.
I turned it off. The thought that my phone might run out of power before I got there was more disturbing than the thought that I might get lost. The road was flat, lit and full of cars even at midnight.
- Maybe I should take a look at the map. - I thought in a few minutes again, but then noticed a familiar sign of supermarket on my right which was next door to the house I had begun to call my own in just a few weeks. The echo in my head went silent.
- Doesn't that look like our thoughts to you? - I asked Grandpa when I drove past our house for the fourth time.
- Well, at first the road seems new to you, you pay attention to everything, and then you're not interested. But it's still scary to go for a big road.
- But you have to go out on a big road anyway, don't you?
- And it also becomes familiar and boring. And you switch to the next one, and so on to infinity.
I stopped in front of the house, forgetting to press the clutch as usual, which always upset Grandpa. I often had dreams about driving in different cars: other people's cars, old cars, new cars. And I could never stop them, as if those cars were going by themselves. In one of those dreams, my grandfather appeared and stopped the car. I remembered it and looked at him, as if I was waiting for the interpretation of my dream.
He got out of the car in silence. On the way to the house entry, he turned around and said:
- You know, the roads may get monotonous, but one day you realize that what matters is not what you think of the roads, but yourself, regardless of the road you take.