Dancer from Khiva, The Read online

  I went back to the relatives. I really was crying now, although not so much from grief as the bitter onions. But they still didn’t think that was enough, they wanted me to throw myself about and shout—in short, to have an ecstatic fit. Like the other women. Just then one of our neighbors, a woman, came up to me and said:

  “Get out of here. With a big belly like that you can’t stay here, go, go!”

  I shook my head:

  “No, the relatives won’t let me.”

  Then she went up to my mother-in-law and persuaded her to let me go until they took the coffin away. It was only then that my mother-in-law allowed me to go. What could she do? She was dependent on her husband’s relatives, too.

  A month and a half after my father-in-law died, my second son, Nadirbek, was born. How I wanted to avoid the thirteenth day of the month! But by ill luck I gave birth to my second son on the thirteenth. I was born on the thirteenth, my first son was born on the thirteenth, and my second son was born on the thirteenth! When I received my Turkmenian passport, it was issued on the thirteenth as well. It was a good thing that at least the months were different.

  My first son, Aibek, is like my father-in-law: thin, with curly hair and a dark complexion. My second son took after my mother-in-law—he has fair skin, only his eyes are black and his eyelashes are very thick and long. The women I know say:

  “Just for those eyelashes you want to have a little girl and give her to him, he’s so handsome.”

  My first son is bright, but careless, he forgets everything: he leaves his school shoes, his jacket, and his cap at school. He loves computers, and we don’t have one. My second son is seriously interested in judo and sambo. He is very tidy and loves order.

  The years went by, and how they passed only God knows. The children grew. My mother-in-law put them in a kindergarten, in a Russian group. After that they went to the Russian school and to the music school as well, they learned to play the piano. We bought them a piano, and they were good students. From childhood on they have spoken only Russian. They don’t know their own language. When my older son was six, he came home from kindergarten and said:

  “Mom, I’m getting married!”

  “Who to?” I laughed.

  “To a Russian girl, I don’t want your ignorant Chukchas, I’ll only marry a Russian girl.”

  That was the announcement he made when he was six.

  I won’t drag it out any longer, I’ll write about our move to Russia. That’s an amusing story too, in its own way. I think you’ll be interested to know how people who have come from the former USSR survive in Russia.

  My husband’s grandmother was from Russia. She was born in 1908 in the Ulyanovsk region. Then it was the Simbirsk province. I’ve already told you about how they ended up in Turkmenia. So then in 1999, thanks to my husband’s Russian grandmother, we acquired Russian citizenship. And so my dream of living in Russia came true.

  At first I went with a friend of mine, Lena—she’s Russian—to the Kuybyshev region: her parents lived there, and she wanted to celebrate the New Year 2000 with them.

  Before we went on reconnaissance to Russia, our neighbors and friends and my mother-in-law gave us the addresses of people they knew and said:

  “Just in case you have nowhere to spend the night, or if anything happens—here are their addresses, stay with them and tell them ‘your friends sent us here,’ give them our greetings and a note.”

  There were enough addresses, a lot of them: Saratov, the Ulyanovsk region, Leningrad (my friend Anna Petrovna), Kaluga (my husband’s brother lived there), another town in the central region of Russia (my mother-in-law’s nephew Ravil lived there), and there were a lot of other addresses as well.

  We set off on our journey in winter, in late December. We went on the Dushanbe–Moscow train. I was carrying a certificate that said I was a citizen of the Russian Federation, so on the way no one stopped or bothered me.

  We decided to make our first stop in Saratov. We had to make up the cost of the tickets somehow, and we’d taken cotton things with us—T-shirts, panties, tracksuit pants, children’s things, bedsheets, a lot of pairs of socks—so we could sell them on the way. And we also took ten cans of food each, and five kilograms of meat (beef), five lemons, dried apricots, walnuts, ten bread cakes, three kilograms of our national candy, peanuts, two kilograms of tea, and Iranian socks—presents for the people we were going to stay with.

  So there we were in Saratov. And I had an address—a woman neighbor had given me it and said: “If you’re in Saratov, you must go to see my friends.” And I remember she gave me two jars of apricot jam for them as well.

  At the station they told us we had to travel another thirty kilometers by bus. We had so many bags! We barely managed to drag them to the bus. We rode along and asked people the way, and they told us what was where. It was amazing: it’s true what they say—you can find your way anywhere if you ask.

  And so we arrived. My friend stayed at the bus station, and I went on to look for the address—the street and the house.

  It was already evening, December, and very cold. I found the apartment and rang the bell. A woman asked from inside, without opening the door:

  “Who’s there?”

  I asked her to open up. A large, tall, healthy elderly woman opened the door and said to me rudely:

  “What do you want, wandering around here, I’m fed up with all these people! I haven’t got anything, give one something, and another appears. Go away!” and she slammed the door.

  I was taken aback. I don’t know who she took me for, probably a gypsy woman. What could I do now? It was cold outside, it was night already, we didn’t know anybody else there, where could we go? That address had been our only hope. I rang again, she opened the door again:

  “If you don’t go away, I’ll call the militia this very moment.”

  “Your comrade sent me . . .” And before I could finish, she answered sharply: “The Tambov wolf is your comrade!” and slammed the door again.

  I finally realized I had to give her the note from my neighbor. I rang, but no one answered anymore. My patience gave out too—I was frozen, after all, it was cold in the hallway too. I started hammering on the door with my hands. The moment she opened the door, and then her mouth, I handed her the note. She was surprised, she took the note and started reading it. After that—“Oi-oi-oi!”—she started apologizing and invited me into her home straightaway.

  I told her I wasn’t on my own. And I explained everything. She took her sled to help collect my friend and the things. My poor friend was standing at the bus stop, thinking I’d disappeared forever. When she saw me, she shouted out:

  “Why did you take so long, I almost froze out in the cold!”

  She said hello to the woman, and we went back to her home. At home there was another woman. They were Aunty Zoya and Aunty Klava, sisters. They used to live in Turkmenia too and they worked with my neighbor. They put the water on for tea straightaway, and we took out all the food and gave it to them. And we gave them the presents. Aunty Klava took all the food and put it away in the refrigerator.

  We told them what our life was like back at home, and we also said we were going to sell our goods and go to the Kuybyshev region to see my friend’s parents and celebrate the New Year 2000.

  They said:

  “We’ll help you, we’ll give you a folding bed to make it easier to sell your things. In the morning we’ll go with you to the place where our dealers trade, and we’ll stand there with you for a while, so they don’t squeeze you out. After all, you’re strangers to them, and you could be competitors.”

  In the morning we got up early. They went with us, showed us the place, and we started selling. Things didn’t go well for my friend Lena, because she’d never traded before, she worked as a senior nurse in a drug addiction clinic. Anyway, I helped her to trade.

  We came back to the apartment in the evening. Aunty Zoya and Aunty Klava were waiting for us, they asked how things
were going. We said all right. After a whole day outside we were very hungry. And then the aunties said:

  “We’re on a diet, we don’t eat much. Here’s some mashed pumpkin for your supper.”

  And they had a dog, a collie—he was called Count—and a very beautiful cat as well. They poured the mashed pumpkin into plates for them, and some for us too. We were hungry and we didn’t refuse, we agreed to eat it. And the food we’d brought—the meat, the fruit, and everything else—was lying in the refrigerator. We didn’t dare open the refrigerator. They’d obviously decided that we’d brought them this food as a present as well. But we’d given them the Iranian socks!

  And so every day we got up like that in the morning, and the women went on lying in their room. And we went off to trade without any breakfast. When we got back they were sitting there well fed. They just told us that they were on a diet, but in fact when we left they ate quick-quick-quick. And when we came back hungry, they were “on a diet.” For a whole week Aunty Zoya and Aunty Klava fed us on that mashed pumpkin—crap for dogs. We had to eat it, we were out in the frost all day, on our feet! It was a good thing our packs were a bit smaller now, we had no strength left to carry them. When my friend Lena couldn’t stand it anymore, she said:

  “I can’t bear to look at that mashed pumpkin anymore, the very sight of it makes me sick. I’ve had enough! Tonight, when they’re asleep, we’re going to open the refrigerator and have at least one decent meal. I’m already missing our bread cakes. Dammit, there are ten of them in the refrigerator, and plenty of meat as well. There were so many kilograms left after the train! No matter what, tonight we’re getting up and eating. Bibish, just you try to say no, and I’ll show you!”

  So that night, when the sisters went to bed, we got up quietly and went into the kitchen. We put the kettle on for tea: so as not to choke on the meat and bread cakes, we had to drink something with them, you understand. We quietly opened the refrigerator, took the meat and bread cakes out, and began eating as quick as we could. If not for the tea, we really would have choked. Suddenly the door opened, and Aunty Klava came into the kitchen:

  “What are you doing here in the middle of the night, eh?”

  We sat there and said nothing. It was a good thing we’d already swallowed everything and tidied up after ourselves, or it would have been really unpleasant. We went to bed and giggled for a long time under the blankets because we’d managed to fool the “dieters,” though we’d almost turned into dogs ourselves from that mashed pumpkin.

  Ten days later our bags were empty, and we left for the Kuybyshev region to see Lena’s parents. Lena sent them a telegram so that they would meet us. From the station we traveled another eighty kilometers or so. We finally reached the house, a brick cottage. While Lena’s mom made dinner, we got washed.

  Her parents had lived in Turkmenia too, thirty or forty years earlier. They had been officials. After the collapse of the USSR people started forcing them out because they were Russian. And so in 1992 they moved to Russia. In his new job her father worked as some kind of official again, but her mother had retired a long time ago.

  Of course, I was living in someone else’s home, so I couldn’t feel at ease. We sat there having dinner and Lena felt fine, but I felt out of place, because her mother was fidgeting and fussing all the time, wiping the table, clearing away crumbs, and we were still eating. It was making me feel really awkward. Wherever I went, her mother went too. I was going to wash my underwear, and the moment I picked up the powder, she came into the bathroom and said:

  “Oh, that’s very expensive powder, I only use it in emergencies. You have to be very sparing, or there’ll be none left soon.”

  I was flustered:

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  She took a glass full of some powder out of a locker and said:

  “Here, wash with this.”

  “Thank you.”

  She closed the door, and I was so nervous I dropped that glass and it broke. All day long Lena’s mother walked around, saying:

  “Our only glass tumbler is broken, the only one I could measure the washing powder with. Where am I going to get another glass like it now? It was very convenient, all my other ones are too big.”

  No matter what room I went into, she came in after me. I started getting so nervous that when I was drinking water or tea, I used to drop the cup, if I was eating, the fork used to drop out of my hand, or I was so agitated I jerked my plate and spilled the soup, because she was always fussing around beside me. She wouldn’t let me eat or walk around or sleep in peace. Lena noticed this too, and she said to her mother:

  “Mom, you’ve pissed me off with your cleanliness and neatness. Leave her in peace. Let her feel at ease, or I’ll go back where I came from!”

  Her mother was offended:

  “I’m trying to oblige you, I just want everything in the house to be nice.”

  Lena answered:

  “There’s no need to oblige us, leave us alone. I came here to rest and celebrate the New Year with you! I’m tired of all these dishes and this cleaning, I’m fed up! But you’re always fussing around with your plates and glasses and your cleaning, you take a break too, stop it.”

  Her mother burst into tears and went to her room.

  In the morning I was getting washed in the bathroom. I washed my hair with some shampoo or other. Her mother came in again:

  “Oh, oh, you used my expensive shampoo, you shouldn’t have done that, ooh, ooh!” and she got out another shampoo for me, but I’d already finished washing my hair. I said:

  “No thank you, I don’t need it.”

  She got angry and went away.

  Even when I was sitting in the toilet, she knocked and said: “Use the air freshener afterward, it’s up on the top shelf, all right?”

  I sat there thinking: She won’t even—pardon the expression—let me shit in peace. I have to get out of here as quickly as I can.

  During the days when we were at Lena’s place, her father drove us round the collective farm settlements in his work car so that we could sell the rest of our goods. I sold almost all the goods, for Lena and for myself, because she said straightaway:

  “I’m too shy to sell things. It turns out I’m no good at it. I’d better go back to Turkmenia.”

  And I answered her:

  “It’s all right for you, your parents are here, in Russia, and your child’s with them” (her boy was in the seventh grade at school). “When you decide to move here, they’ll do everything for you. You don’t have to worry, your child is in safe hands: his grandfather and grandmother do the best they can for him, I can see that. But what have I got? My parents are in Uzbekistan. They live in a village, there’s nothing there for children. I live in Turkmenia. My children don’t know Uzbek and they don’t understand Turkmenian either. But my mother-in-law wants to move to Russia, she says: ‘My husband’s dead, there’s no one left here for me now, apart from my old mother. As soon as I bury her, I’ll go away to Russia, to my homeland.’ Lena, I have to arrange my own life, mine and my children’s, for myself. You can see what’s happening all around us. My boys go to the Russian school, when they graduate from school where will they go—to a college? Everything there’s taught in Turkmenian. They might officially let them take the exams, but then they’ll fail them, because they’ve got enough of their own kind. Let’s suppose they have a sudden stroke of luck and they get into some higher educational institution. But when they graduate from college or technical college, who’s going to give them a job? No one. Because everywhere the official records are kept in Turkmenian and everyone has to know the Turkmen language. But my boys don’t know Turkmenian or Latin or Uzbek—in short, not a single word. So you can go back home, Lena, because everything will be arranged for you. I have to get everything for my children myself. Because I haven’t got parents like you have—mine are simple and poor. They have enough cares in their life without me.”

  Lena and I celebrated the New Yea
r 2000 with her parents. After that I said good-bye to them and left to go to Moscow. A day later I was sitting on the Kazan railroad station in Moscow, wondering which direction I should travel now. I looked at the train timetable: if I went to where my mother-in-law’s nephew was, I’d be there in three or four hours. I walked over to the Leningrad Station and looked at the timetable: almost all the daytime trains arrived in Leningrad (that is, in Saint Petersburg) late in the evening. That wasn’t good for me. Because if I didn’t find my friend or she’d changed her address, where would I go in the middle of the night? I thought I’d better go to the town that was four hours’ journey from Moscow, where my mother-in-law’s nephew Ravil lived with his wife Galya. I had the address, and I’d arrive there during the day, so I might find them quickly.

  I bought a ticket for the train, for a private car, as there weren’t any tickets left for the general one. For this pleasure I had to pay three times as much. I got out of the train at the right station and walked to where the taxis were standing, because I didn’t know how to get where I was going on a trolley or a route taxi. I told the taxi driver the address and he said: “Let’s go.”

  He asked me where I was from, who I had there and so on, the way all taxi drivers do, he was interested. When I told him the address, he said:

  “If your relatives live at that address, it means they’re well off.”

  I asked:

  “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s a cooperative building, a big new one. People who buy apartments there have money.”

  I didn’t answer him, because I’d never been to their place, how could I know how well off they were? Although my mother-in-law had told me her nephew used to work as a gold prospector.