Peking to Paris Read online

  Wiping his hands on a clean rag and carefully closing the long hood of the exceedingly elegant car behind him, Matthieu offers a sop to calm the agitation that must be evident on my face. “Things are better organized these days, of course. But the Chinese still don’t seem too happy to let us drive through their country.” He doesn’t appear to be someone’s mechanic, so with my customary insightfulness I deduce that the vintage vehicle he’s been working on belongs to him. It’s massive, but, dare I say, artistic in its design; if it were a sculpture, it would be a Rodin, not a Calder. The vehicle itself seems unusually big, perhaps as long as our extended cab, full bed, one-ton Ford pickup. Its long, sloping front fenders bring to mind a springing cheetah. A steel-spoked spare wheel adorns each running board. The black convertible top is folded back, allowing the black leather seats to warm in the sun.“When I did a similar event in 1997,”Matthieu continues, “we drove for thirty days. It was a completely different route. Quite difficult, very tiring. But fascinating.”

  “What did you drive?” I ask in a sociable, chatty way. It still hasn’t dawned on me that someone with a car as splendid as that Mercedes would be willing to submit it to the rigors of Mongolian sands, Tibetan plateaus, or Siberian anything. If one had such a rare and beautiful vehicle, why would one court the possibility of smashing it on rocks, dredging it through rivers, or, even worse, flipping it over? I would like my expression to convey how intent I am on delving into the drama and the rigors of what he’s done, but my line of questioning is halted by the need to fuss with stray strands of my hair, which the plucky breeze has just blown over my eyes and into my mouth.

  Matthieu looks at me, tolerant and bemused. “This car, of course. Built in 1927. Runs very well.” Then he exclaims, “Bernard, this is the thing for you! You will love it.” It seems in the moments before my arrival he’s discerned Bernard’s love for remote places, his pleasure when in deep vehicular trouble, his intense knowledge of all things automotive. Matthieu has no idea that I get panicky at the thought of car breakdowns, that my automotive knowledge fits into the small vinyl pouch that holds my car’s outdated first-aid kit. While I have long wished to be at ease in remote places, the truth is, not knowing if I’ll reach safe shelter at the end of the day makes me intensely nervous. Why in the world would I want to subject myself to what he’s described?

  Then Matthieu drops the gauntlet.

  “You must have an old car in order to go. Yes, the rally organizers allow only old vehicles to register. Prewar, if possible. Because, you see, they want to create an event that will use cars as close as possible to the originals.” His eyes twinkle when he says this, relishing the fact that he clearly has the sort of car they’re after. “Do you have one?”

  Bernard and I look at each other, speechless. Do we have an old car? What on earth for? What we have are vehicles that can handle six months of winter snows, the deep powdery stuff others pay a fortune to ski in but that we have to drive through. Where we live, if you’re waiting for a wintertime roadside rescue, you want a well-sealed, comfortable cab and a fanatically dedicated heater to keep you company during the cold hours it’ll take for a tow truck to arrive. Two-seater convertibles with spoke wheels? Sedans with ribbed leather bucket seats and whitewall tires? These are not the conveyances that’ll get us home from town in a blizzard.

  The bird chatter seems to grow in urgency, while the buzz from the burger line dims into the background. I turn to Bernard and see him standing there, so eager he’s almost vibrating. I think, “Well, if you’re with him, how bad could it get?” “Bad,” I answer myself.

  “Go,” my adventurous side pleads. “It’ll be wild, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Consider it this way: two years from now, would you rather be driving through amazing Mongolia, or fixing a barbed wire fence?”

  “Forget about it,” retorts the cringing side of me. “The entire concept is too far-fetched. It’s everything you hate about travel. Too many people around. Too many unknowns. Stick with what you’re good at . . . which is not reading in a moving car.”

  Matthieu is staring at us, a slight smile playing on his lips. If I could stop arguing with myself I’d have a chance to engage this gracious European in clever, meaningful repartee—that is if I could think of anything to say. Thankfully, Matthieu interrupts my baffled reverie, “But, you may not be able to register anyway. Because I think they are already full.”

  I look again to Bernard, see the wide, gleeful grin and his body tilted just a little bit forward, as if ready to go. I recall our vows nearly 25 years ago: to have and to hold, to love and to cherish. Who knows. Maybe there also was something in there about getting in a car together and going whither the road might lead. To drive and be driven. If there wasn’t, who am I to say there shouldn’t have been. Besides, to put a spin on Groucho Marx, if we can’t get in, then the Peking to Paris 2007 Motor Challenge is clearly something we must do. Our eyes connect and I can’t disappoint him. I nod.

  “We don’t have such a car,” Bernard says. “But we can find one.”

  Why I Said Yes

  We were a classic office romance. I was a recent MBA, hoping to get a foot in the door of a local word processing developer. When they offered a temp job subbing for a vacationing secretary over the Christmas holidays, I accepted. Bernard was a recently divorced Frenchman who’d just been transferred from Los Angeles to Boulder, Colorado, by the same company. It was love at first sight. I was smitten by Bernard’s charm, his skill in things I knew nothing about, how the lines around his green eyes crinkled into rays when he laughed. He delighted in my sense of humor, fashionable clothes, and French cooking. When he peered over my shoulder at the office, sniffing Chanel, eying my shoulder tattoo, patiently explaining some new software, I knew he was it. At twenty-eight I’d looked long enough for the right man. That Bernard was a Catholic to my Jew, boundlessly brave to my innately cautious, French to my American, twice married to my never-been-hitched, made us complementary, not incompatible. I had no doubt he was the man for me.

  On our first date, as he whisked me off to a glamorous hilltop restaurant in his sleek silver sports car, I knew one thing immediately: this man was a serious driver. He was self-assured, on intimate terms with the road. I found his elegantly fresh aftershave intoxicating. His hands on the steering wheel drew my eye: long competent fingers, neatly trimmed nails, his palms sheathed in supple, black kidskin gloves, the kind with holes over the knuckles and no fingertips. Part of that evening, the wine and luscious food, thrilled me. The other part, in which my fear of speeding filled the back of my throat as we careened through hairpin turns, did not.

  I should have set the tone right then, told him plainly what my preferred car experience was. But it was our first date, and I thought that would spoil things. Besides, I wanted to impress him with my willingness to go where he went, at his speed. Keeping up seemed important. And then there was my belief that, “If there’s a door in front of you, shove it open.” In this case, I also wanted to shut that door behind me and live on the other side of it forever. With him.

  Our relationship progressed rapidly. First a shared Christmas tree, next a communal kitten, then buying a house, and, within half a year, marriage in front of a priest and cantor, with a cross overhead and Bernard stamping on a wineglass in good Jewish tradition. In the months that followed, I exposed Bernard to quintessentially American endeavors: pumpkin carving, movies with candy and popcorn, the importance of heart-shaped gifts on Valentine’s Day, why a campfire requires the roasting of marshmallows. Weekend mornings we lazed in bed while I read him Winnie the Pooh and Charlotte’s Web, my answer to his Asterix and Tin Tin.

  It was a fair trade, as Bernard showed me a world in which any difficulty could be overcome by staying calm and thinking carefully. His fearlessness inspired me, his continental courtesies made me nicer. He was effortlessly caring, putting three ice cubes in my ginger ale—just the way I like it—when I was sick, placing himself on the traffic side of the sidewalk to
protect me with his life should a car jump the curb. He laughed at my puns, learned to waltz and two-step because I loved dancing, let me correct him when he charmingly pronounced English words in the French way, calling a Viking a “weeking” and Levi’s jeans, “leh-wiss.” He admired my knowledge of Mozart and Chopin, called me “cherie adorée.”

  Best of all, Bernard watched out for me, and that allowed me to be braver than I otherwise would have been. When the snow melted, we took to the hills on bicycles, Bernard pumping away in front, me drafting behind. Together we learned windsurfing and got our open water diving certificates. We went rollerblading, Bernard heading for an area that was all downhill. “I don’t think I can do this, Bernard,” I said.

  “Yes, you can.” He showed me how to brake, held my arm as we started, then stayed by my side as we picked up speed. I didn’t fall.

  Candles and flowers appeared just because. Without my even prompting, Bernard took care of washing the dishes. I figured that nicety would be cast aside before the ink dried on our marriage certificate, but he continued scrubbing pots and loading the dishwasher long after the wedding chimes were silent.

  There was nothing Bernard couldn’t figure out how to repair or rebuild. He drew plans, calculated supplies, while I, a natural helper, handed him tools or carted away trash. I also was highly attuned to the need for a hot chocolate with schnapps or a sustaining lunch. His seemingly innate ability to figure out how to do things impressed and thrilled me.

  A year after our wedding, Bernard started his own business. It was the early 1980s, and a novelty item called a PC had appeared. Now, people around the world were whispering about how great it would be if software ran in their own language. Having worked for computer companies all his life, Bernard knew enough about language and software to smell a good opportunity. His business plan was this: “I am French, I know software; therefore, I can translate.” He found a software developer who believed him, who gave him a translation contract just like that. I thought I could see the future, and it delighted me. He’d be his own boss, working a few months, taking plenty of time off to travel. I would pursue work as a freelance writer. All would be well.

  At last we’re free, I thought.

  Au contraire.

  The first few years of business, as he scraped by on credit cards, showed just how out of focus my personal rose-colored glasses had been. Succumbing to the anxiety of looming bankruptcy, I ground my teeth at night as I dreamed about losing our home. Our attempt to maintain some semblance of a normal life meant that we tried a few short vacations. Our overworked credit card paid for those as well, which made those trips less than relaxing.

  My dentist told me I should change my life or risk having my molars crack. “What are you suggesting I do?” I asked.

  “Get rid of the stress,” he advised. I would have hooted at his sense of humor if his fingers hadn’t been pulling my lips open in an unsightly grimace. Get rid of the stress? Have Bernard give up after so much hard work? Unthinkable.

  My anxiety built, to the point where after every meal I felt sick. I’d lie down, limp and pale, while Bernard paced, concerned I had a fatal illness. I feared admitting what I suspected. That my mounting worry about maxed-out credit cards was causing my stomach to go into acidic spasms. Instead, I decided to join him in the business, hoping my American forthrightness and PR experience would be the persuasive edge the company lacked.

  Indeed, our talents complemented the other’s perfectly. Though not good with technical things and fairly ignorant about the mechanics of what we did, I discovered a knack for convincing people who’d never met me to part with large sums of money to work with us. Whatever project I brought in, Bernard figured out how to accomplish. As the company grew, I continued to lose sleep, but now at least my nightmares were of the two of us going under together, rather than Bernard drowning and leaving me behind.

  Success came, and it was great. And it also wasn’t.

  Beijing: Take Two

  The smog in Beijing is a permanent thick blanket. It seems we are living in a dense cocoon of pollution, which coats my lungs, clings to my skin, and makes my eyes sting. Mornings we clamber up sections of the Great Wall, the steepness flexing my ankles to such a degree that the tendons start to shred. The next morning, my ankles are swollen and my first steps out of bed a painful hobble. I can’t know it at the time, but this injury will be the gift that keeps on giving. Throughout the rally, my daily walk from parking area to hotel is a slow, mincing shuffle; a year later, the tendons are still so inflamed that I cannot even run.

  Afternoons we wander past Mao’s mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, craning our necks at the brownish-blue sky where a riot of boxy and serpentine kites battle it out, blue against yellow, red against orange. Kite handlers race about below somehow, magically, never colliding. Crossing the square, which is the length of nearly ten football fields, is a balancing act between two bad options. At first we circle around the oncoming throngs. Soon we tire of serpentining far out of our way and decide to wade through them instead. This is a total gamble, as there’s equal likelihood we’ll emerge on the other side as there is of being swept by the human current in their opposing direction. When we squeeze shoulder to shoulder with thousands of vacationing Chinese in the Forbidden City at the Square’s north end, we realize the crowds near the mausoleum were meager.

  One warm evening, we take a stroll along a canal behind our hotel. Above the constant hum of traffic I hear the strains of an orchestra, playing a Strauss waltz. It’s tinny and faint, but so lovely and out-of-place in this rapidly modernizing city that our feet are drawn toward it. As we amble along under gracious old trees, we come upon a tiny park, with rusting, rickety workout equipment dispersed around a concrete slab. It’s from decades ago, a Communist-era perk to spur public well-being. “Look Bernard, there’s no one on any of these things,” I say, so used to the masses at Beijing’s tourist spots that I can’t believe there’s no queue for this stuff. Bernard does a few chin-ups and sit-ups, while I wobble along the balance beam. It’s a balmy late-May night, and we’re not the only ones out taking advantage of it. Some young couples, pudgy and round-shouldered, stand nearby. Their kids pedal tricycles in between the rings and the parallel bars. Everyone eyes us with unabashed curiosity, perhaps amazed to discover these sculptural relics have a use. Bernard hoists himself higher and I’m more acrobatic to please our audience.

  Finished with our gymnastics, we allow the music to draw us onward, heading for a street lamp in the near distance whose weak glow pulls us through the gathering dark. Reaching it, we find a faintly illuminated plaza, where twenty or so couples twirl slowly to Strauss’s “Blue Danube.” Nobody’s dressed up. They all seem to have hurriedly dried their hands on a dishtowel, perhaps leaving pots in the sink to come out to this open-air ballroom. A DJ manages a small boom box, its long power cord attached umbilically to the nearby street lamp. As he flips a CD and punches buttons for the right track, the dancers stand silent and respectful, as if frozen. He offers a polka, then a waltz, a foxtrot, and another polka. Since everyone’s partnered up and knows the flow, it seems they must meet here for outdoor dancing on a regular basis. No one wastes time talking. It’s all about the music, and if a woman doesn’t have a male partner, she dances with another woman.

  Bernard and I took ballroom dance lessons before our wedding, so we could waltz and foxtrot in style on our wedding day. Over the years, we’d wowed not a few old-timers with our jitterbug moves, had them clapping from their tables as we stomped the floor. This plaza, though, is small, and we don’t want to offend anyone by knocking into them, or god forbid, stepping on their toes. So we stand arm in arm, hip to hip, on a patch of thin grass and watch.

  With each new dance the couples adjust to the new rhythm, though their steps remain the same, a boxy, rigid movement without grace. It doesn’t matter. I’m enchanted by what I see, because it’s clear these plain, working class people in ill-fitting tops and shapeless dresses are he
re to do one thing only: dance. They’re loving it, just as I do. We’re about to leave when suddenly the lilting strains of “Vienna Woods” fill the Beijing night. Everyone on the dance floor nods and smiles in recognition of this beloved waltz, and they take off, whirling and dipping in three-four time.

  Walking back to our hotel, arms wrapped around each other’s waist, I think back to our euphoria on receiving confirmation that our entry application for the Peking to Paris had been accepted. It was July 2005, and everything those first few months was exhilarating. I ordered maps of each country the Rally would cross. Spreading them on the dining room table, Bernard and I pored over them, piecing together the tentative route the organizers sent with our acceptance packet.

  We placed flags to mark the towns that would take us north from Beijing the 625 miles to Mongolia. From there we’d drive over 1,700 miles northwest across Mongolia and the Gobi Desert to a recently opened border post with Russia called Tsagaannuur, where we would enter Siberia. Through Siberia we would tackle the immensity of Russia, making our way nearly 3,400 miles along that country’s southern edge to Moscow and then straight north to St. Petersburg. Once through Russia, we’d cross into Estonia, where we’d zip a seemingly minor 780 miles south through the Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania. Clearing the Baltic states would mean we had merely 1,325 miles left, driving west through Poland’s Lake District, then southwest into the former East Germany. Within sniffing distance of Paris, we’d traverse the wine country of Germany’s Moselle Valley and enter France from the east, near where fabled battles were fought in World Wars I and II. Then it would be a straight shot west, stopping for a sip of bubbly in Reims, the heart of champagne country, before crossing the finish line in Paris.