'All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.'�
Martin Buber

****
I came to with a start when the compartment door banged shut.

Confused, I tried to fix my bleary eyes on the woman who had entered and for a second thought I was still in the midst of a dream. Realising it had grown dark outside I vaguely wondered how long I'd been out. It didn't really matter; this train wasn't in any hurry.

The woman gently placed a small backpack on the lower bunk then unbuttoned her jacket. It was thick and warm-looking, lush with fur collar and cuffs ' vital insulation against these windy, bitter chills. As she moved, a scent of perfume mingled with the odour of decay in the dilapidated carriage.

I shivered in spite of the central heating. Freezing November winds had begun blasting their way down over the ranges. Snow would soon follow in their wake. Only the most hardened travellers or those desperate for a meagre wage attempted this journey in winter.

She double-checked her ticket against the three vacant bunks then sat down wearily on the bottom bed, sniffing. She picked some fluff off her jacket and examined it carefully. Then she rolled it into a ball and began flicking it with her thumb nail then catching it in the palm of her hand.

'Hi,'� I ventured in my best Ukrainian. 'Welcome to the train journey from hell.'�

She glanced up at me, distracted: 'Yeah.'�

'Going all the way?'�

She held up a palm and stopped me in my tracks: 'Let's not bother with the "whos" and "where tos", OK? I've heard it all before."

Fair enough. I straightened myself out; my book had slipped onto the bunk. I retrieved it and lay back against the pillows, more to protect my kidneys from the cold wall than for their feeble cushioning.

She leaned against the wall, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and closed her eyes.

The sounds of shouting and footsteps filled the corridor as people made their way through the Kupe class compartment. Someone stopped outside and the door slid open again.

A provodnik appeared. He stood in the chipped doorway and looked at me expectantly. His uniform was thin and shabby. It hung loosely off his narrow shoulders, barely touching his skeletal frame. His downtrodden demeanour betrayed a history of servitude to this gruelling journey.

I gave him my ticket. He held it close to his face, scrutinising it thoroughly then tossed it back to me. It fluttered and drifted in the draught, landing finally on the bunk beside the woman.

"Turn the heating up. More heat!" I pointed at the heating grill.

He gestured at me again with a bony hand. The movement revealed the top half of a vodka bottle peeking from his trouser pocket. He barked something I didn't catch and continued to stare at me.

I turned to the woman for clues. She sat motionless. We exchanged blank looks.

I dug in my pocket and reached over to offer him the few coins I had. He seemed satisfied with the amount and left again slamming the door. From the corridor came the nauseating sound of lungs being cleared, followed by a thick mucous-filled spit.

The woman grimaced and twisted in her seat. Faded jeans slunk around her youthful hips. I felt an urge to run my hand over them, hold them close and absorb their warmth.

'I don't always know what the question is but money's usually the answer.'� I offered as another opening.

She picked up my ticket, rolled it deliberately into a tight little ball and flicked it into the corner of the compartment.

I cleared my throat and looked for something to distract me. My mug was empty. I considered making more chai but the journey for hot water was too much of an ordeal.

There was supposedly hot water available on every coach but I'd had to go down to the nearest Platskartny coach to get some. That meant pushing and shoving my way through stinking, cramped carriages overloaded with huge striped bags and the meanest of humankind.

The train clattered along, groaning like a lone ailing dinosaur on its final journey to extinction. A slave to habit, it pitched and swayed, relentless and rhythm-less through the bleak, unending, frozen tundra.

I picked up Gogol: ''�clumps of vines, the slender alders and silvery poplars flew by'�'� I was wading through 'Dead Souls'�, my current favourite. It had taken months to find an English translation, but finally this copy had turned up in a dusty antiquary hidden in one of Kiev's frozen back alleys.

Gogol's sulphurous humour in his tales of peasants, landowners and conniving officials had fuelled my affection for the local character. I was banking on his eccentric insights to provide some light relief.

The woman had undone her pony tail and was shaking her hair free. Now she was combing her fingers through it, teasing out dark tangles with pale fingertips.

I reached into my duffel bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

"Want one?" She finished tying her hair back then shook her head. "Mind if I do?"

She shot a look at the brimming ashtray on the window table and again just shook her head. I was at least partly to blame for the stench in here. I lit one with a clink of my Zippo.

Without warning everything went black as the train lurched into a tunnel. My ears popped in the swelling vacuum. The clattering intensified to a reverberating clamour.

The tip of my cigarette glowed, releasing its bitter-smoke to seep at will.

Just as suddenly, the lights returned.

The woman had moved to lean against the corridor wall, her legs drawn up in front of her and her pack tucked safely to one side. Now we were facing one another.

The train's persistent racket slowed and speeded without reason.

I turned to look out into the world flashing blackly by. Instead I stared into her pale reflection, distorted by condensation on the cold, plastic window pane. Her face loomed brightly like a full moon suspended in the endless night and I succumbed to a pang of longing for the familiar skies of home.

I turned back and caught her eye. She seemed to be studying me.

I reached into my duffel bag and pulled out a half empty bottle.

It was a home-made mixture of muscaria and vodka. The vodka worked to mask the taste of muscaria, supposedly made from Siberian reindeer urine. It tasted like reindeer piss but it was a popular psychotropic and paid my way through the back streets and alleys.

I took a hefty swig.

Just then the train swerved violently and the bottle jarred into my teeth, spurting double the dose I craved. Cursing, I wiped the spirit off my chin with the back of my hand then licked it for good measure.

I offered her the bottle. She sniffed it then sucked enthusiastically, instantly pulling a face at the strong musty flavour.

'Which drain did you get that from?

'It's an acquired taste,'� I smiled.

The train had slowed again and finally heaved to a shivering standstill. Outside voices shouted, doors banged, truck engines rumbled and roared off.

A whistle blew. Obediently the dinosaur dragged itself onward, leaving the miserable frozen station to fend for itself. Gradually it picked up speed with laborious grunts and shunts.

She took another swig before handing the muscaria back to me. 'You've got a few problems to solve when you get to L'viv, haven't you.'� It was more statement than question.

'What makes you say that?'�

She didn't reply. She was beginning to get to me.

More voices in the corridor outside and the pound of footsteps grew louder. More doors slid open and slammed again. Yet more footsteps. This time they stopped outside our compartment.

The door handle rattled. The woman and I looked at each other, startled. The rattling stopped then the footsteps continued on their way down the corridor.

Relief passed across the woman's face.

I wanted to keep talking but couldn't think of anything to say. So we sat there in silence, occasionally lurching one way or another as the stiff old train negotiated endless bends.

I went back to reading Gogol.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something moving across the floor. She saw it too and drew her legs up closer underneath her. We both watched, engrossed by the large brown cockroach trundling its way around the grimy threadbare carpet. Its feelers tested the air for edibles.

Finding nothing of interest it made its way over to the doorway then through a gap and out into the corridor.

The woman stared at me for a moment, sizing me up then reached across to sling the bolt, locking us into the compartment.

She burped quietly into her hand; shook her head to clear it. 'Look, you've been in this hellish country a while, yeah?'�

I shrugged: 'Long enough.'�

She moved closer, until she was sitting directly opposite. Her eyes were shiny jet discs set in porcelain smooth skin. They urged me to reach out and touch her.

'Long enough to grasp what you're really doing out here?'�

I balked: 'What do you mean?'�

'Do you want to see something?'�

'What is it?'� I wasn't sure I did.

'I can't describe it. You have to see it for yourself.'�

'But'�'�

'No, no half measures.'� She sat forward, examined my face intensely and whispered: 'Look'�'�

I held my breath.

Her face was glowing brightly now. It could have been the muscaria but I wasn't so sure. She slid a hand into an inside pocket; the one over her heart, and carefully took out what looked like a small black sack.

With infinite care she unlaced the sack to reveal something the size of a walnut, wrapped in more black material.

Her eyes grew wide as she felt the familiar weight in her palm.

Gently, oh so delicately she peeled back the folds of material.

I swear her eyes changed colour as they drank in the tiny object inside. Her face began to glow red and the few loose hairs framing her face stirred gently.

I leaned closer to get a better look.

Curled in her palm, stark against the black material lay the tiny body of an oily red bird.

I stared at the creature, couldn't drag my eyes away from it. It was moving slowly, seemed to be growing. Its oily skin slipped from red to blue to gold to green to orange. As I watched in fascination it lifted its tiny head and looked me straight in the eye.

That same moment the train plunged into darkness as it battled through another tunnel. The echoing racket filled my head.

But out of the pitch black the bird's aura glimmered, faintly at first then more brightly. I could see its eyes glistening, inviting. I put up no resistance as it sucked me in to a deep and welcoming oblivion.

A tug in my brain; my feet leave the ground. Pitching, swaying I reach out to grab something, but I'm already astride an avian body of oily, red down. Wings beating rhythmically, onwards, upwards, in easy reassurance.

Gradually from the darkness a green glow appears, luminescent. As it nears, the green reveals a thousand shades and hues. Myriad shapes evolve and form until a small island, lit from within, becomes visible. I am heading straight for it; or it's heading straight for me!

We collide with a thud.

I land in a clearing amongst low vegetation; soft and comforting. I sit there, still and silent.

Gradually a deep concentration takes over until my eyes lose focus, fix on some invisible thought, and my body becomes completely calm. In this relaxed state I absorb everything around me.

A pale pink sky hovers gently above, lashed to the island by sunbeams spun from tall grasses all around.

The forest glitters with multi-coloured insects. Sweet scents waft by on their way to somewhere else. Flowers around my knees nod softly in rhythm. Rustling and chattering prickle my eardrums; somewhere in the distance a cat giggles.

A splash of plump raindrops on leaves above draws my attention skyward. Squinting into light I witness a golden shower of dew spray down from the upper boughs, still swaying from some creature's spring into flight.

The pale kind skyshine, warmer now, thrills my skin until my eyes roll ecstatically. A scented breeze propels me upwards, feather-light into the realms of breathless winds, swirling through rainbow blues and greens of an unearthly sky around me.

Immersed midstream between sense and imagination and open to the slightest sound and scent, in this trance-like state I can transcend the anchored mundane into libertine poetic fantasy.

I float across the treetops then slowly sink to lie on the grassy bank of a small golden pool. A frilled mist drifts across its surface. I crawl towards the water, impelled to investigate its gilded depths.

My reflection watches me. No longer veiled by vanity, it floats sublime in all its honest glory. I reach out and touch my cheek. Those fingertips distort my reflection sending it rippling across the meniscus. It laps the shore, rebounds and gathers up before me once again.

My eyes stare deeply into mine, peeling back layers of understanding lost before to secrecy and denial. A shudder of relief works its way down my spine expelling grief and fear and shame.

My reflection fades and disappears.

Faces loom out of the golden water: familiar, forgotten faces of people I've loved and left behind. Their hands reach out to touch me but I am impervious to them all.

They unleash a thousand images upon me. Not memories but words: giant letters, alphabets of known and unknown worlds. Now unburied, these dusty mouthfuls wriggle free and dance before me: taunting, appealing, irresistibly close.

I grab these jagged articles and embrace them in my heart. Sadness swells in waves of joy as second chances offer up their hands. I grasp at them but they cavort, elusive, through the grass and off into the forest, then dissolve into the cooler, darker air.

A dark horse emerges from the forest. I recognise her from a distant dream. Once she was my heart's companion, now she snorts, invites me on one last mad gallop. For old time's sake, she says.

I leap astride and soon we're but a fleeting flashing black as she navigates us through the labyrinthine forest. I hold tight to her mane, pale fingers tangled through long dark hair. She's all I need: lithe, familiar body between my legs, slinking around those endless bends.

My heart beats wildly, clamouring with the thrill. Her snorts and pounding hooves beat out the rhythm of the forest. Energy flows through me, timeless, recharging my soul, washing away the weight of modern consciousness.

All too soon she slows; emerging from the forest, pacing finally to a trembling halt by the pool's frilling edge. Impatiently she stamps her slender hooves. I could cling to my beautiful crutch for ever but I must let go; forget her once and for all. I must leave her behind.

And so with long, regretful linger I step into the golden water.

Its coolness tingles up my skin, tiny hairs stiffen. The sand is soft and clouds around my toes. I wade further, on an impulse swim out to the middle.

An eddy swirls in whirlpools, spinning tighter, faster. They suck me under, down into the darker golden depths; pebbles clatter round my head. My head knocked against something solid; clouds of sand obscure my thoughts. A hard window pane: cold against my cheek.

The clattering keeps clattering on. Pitching and swaying; the stink of cigarettes. I slump there, head in hands, trying to grasp at sanity.

The lights came suddenly back to life.

I opened my eyes with a start. My fingers grasped the hard bunk beneath me, felt for the solid edge.

The empty muscaria bottle lay discarded on the threadbare floor. My bag still crouched in its corner. Gogol lay face down beside me.

The woman's bunk was vacant. No sign of her remained. No backpack, no coat, nothing.

I was all alone.

The compartment rocked and swayed. Outside the night still dreamt of stars and shouldered the infinity of space. I drifted off. It was as though she'd never been there.

I came to once more as the sounds of slamming and the shuddering screech of brakes pierced the air. Confused I tried to fix my bleary eyes on my surroundings and for a moment thought I was still in the midst of a dream.

It had grown light outside and the first pink shades of grey brightened the horizon. I craned against the window to see the station. Where was I? How long had I been out?

Reaching into my duffel bag my trembling hand felt for the cool hard Zippo. Instead it brushed against something soft and velvety and warm.

I lifted the tiny bundle carefully out of the bag and cradled it in my hands. Finally I placed it securely in an inside pocket, the one over my heart.

I wondered at the enigma protected within.

It was my responsibility now.

***

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