They had to cover sixty kilometers to the highway at the mining site. They still didn’t know that in a few hours they would be wiped out and would search in vain for even a piece of wood to boil tea in a tin kettle taken on the advice of seasoned guys. They didn’t know that by day their soaked felt boots would cut their feet with blood and that gray wool would stick to living flesh. They didn’t know that at their absolute limit they would come across several boards torn off someone’s tractor-sled cabin, and they would fall asleep on those boards, putting their hated suitcases under their heads. They didn’t know that the April sun in their sleep would burn their faces, and their head would cruelly throb from that kind of sleep. They didn’t know the tundra road—and didn’t know how, in the end, exhaustion turns into hatred for the road, for fatigue, and for oneself…