Russian Jeep

I sit in the front with Tulga, the driver, whose name means oven. When I am out of the car, with Erdenbileg, interviewing, Tulga sleeps, throwing his seat and its white cover back. When we return he jerks upright and, if the sun is shining, puts on a pair of narrow sunglasses that look part medical, part Robocop, and starts the jeep with a mysterious, low down grope that shudders it into gear. Out in the open, tumbling along on the mismash of paths that are scrawled across the grasslands or bashed through the riverbeds, Tulga drives like an organist, upright, hands a flutter between wheel and gears. Everything is avoided – puddles, stones, two-foot dips – as if the boxy, light blue Russian jeep is made of balsa-wood, not steel. When conversation subsides and I start to drift, gripping a black handle on the dashboard lightly, Tulga turns on the sound system. Most of the time it is loud Russian house music, euphoric women singing sub-English anthems – “I’ve got something in my purse, you always think the worst, I only want to flirt… Shake your ass, shake your ass” – and the rest of the time it is Mongolian jokes or old songs. At these, Erdenbileg, who has an even, fine voice, joins in from the back seat, explaining between the verses – “It is about a river,” “It is about a woman, a lovely woman, a love song!” – and sometimes even Tulga’s lips start to move as the mountains roll by his window. I told him I would send him some new music from London. When we said goodbye, he gave me a chess set.