A Spring Betrayal

Chapter 24

Saltanat sat down beside me, pulled a bottle of beer from the ice bucket. The babushka uncapped the bottle and Saltanat took a long swallow. She put the bottle down, started to pick at the edge of the label.

I said nothing.

“So you met with the minister then?” she asked.

I didn’t reply, merely looked at her, raised an eyebrow. Saltanat reached over and took a cigarette from my pack, lit it, blew the smoke away as if she were doing her best to keep her temper, and wanted me to know it.

“I obey orders, like you. Except when it suits me not to. Again, like you,” she said, took an angry swig at her beer. “I want to help you. I want to catch whoever put a bullet through Gurminj’s head, and neither of us will succeed in that minor task if Tynaliev wants our heads on stakes in Ala-Too Square, will we?”

I knew pragmatism and acceptance were called for. But pride has a strange way of making us turn away from the sensible path, watching us trek over the mountains instead of through the valleys. So I simply shrugged, feigned indifference, and watched the babushka pour ashlam foo into bowls, the eggs settling on cold noodles, fat glistening in the sunlight.

Saltanat sighed, concentrated on her cigarette. Then the babushka spoke.

“Don’t be a gopnik, you,” she said, her accent thick with the slurred vowels of the south, harsh from a lifetime of smoking strong papirosh and working in the bazaar. “A low-class like you should give one of his balls that a woman like this should even speak to you, not scrape you off her shoe.”

She slammed another bottle of beer down in front of Saltanat, gestured at me with a grimy forefinger.

“You get a devotchka like her once in your lifetime, you, listen to me.”

I risked a glance at Saltanat, and though I couldn’t catch her eye, I could tell by the way her shoulders shook she was amused.

“Listen to me, boy, I know you think I’m just a peasant, a nothing. But I tell you this. I lost a father in the Great Patriotic War, defending Moscow. I lost two sons in infancy. I’ve buried two husbands. If there’s one thing I know, if you can’t find room for someone, then there’s no room for anything else worth having. Go on, laugh at me.”

“Forgive me, Granny,” I said, reached for one of her hands, wrinkled and clawed with arthritis. “I am a stupid man, who doesn’t know when a wonderful person has stepped into his life. You’re kind to teach such a lesson to such a fool. Spasibo.”

I turned to Saltanat, removed the sunglasses that hid her eyes. “I ask your forgiveness for my rudeness, stupidity, bad manners. If it happens again, just pull the trigger before I shoot myself anyway.”

She said nothing, merely nodded, and my heart twisted in my chest as she gave one of her rare smiles, intoxicating, like sunrise sliding across snow. She took my hand and squeezed it, and I felt the burden on my life, the obsession to avenge the dead, lift for a moment. I knew it would return—none of us change that easily or so quickly—but at least I now had someone to keep me company part of the way on my journey.

I paid the babushka for the food and drink, left a generous tip, turned to Saltanat.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Back to the car,” she said, “and then find a hotel.”