The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

A good girl

Aminat was grimly silent as I washed her hair with the last of the foreign shampoo, dried it with a blow-dryer, and put waves in it with the curling iron. I refrained from using starched bows or other vulgar trinkets, but I did insist Aminat put on the dress I had made her for the New Year’s holiday two years prior. I had wanted Aminat to play the snow princess in the annual school show. It was a major role, one every normal girl wanted. I had given the teachers money and chocolate and made this dress, a pale blue dream made of silk and lace that nonetheless remained unworn: Aminat refused to put on the dress or take the role. After days of fighting, I was forced to write off the gifts as useless investments.

Now Aminat was quiet and obedient like a good little girl. The dress was too small. I fluffed the collar and sleeves and draped Aminat’s black hair — now wavy after much labor — over her shoulders. She looked small and fragile, younger than she actually was, except that the look on her face spoiled it.

“You have to try to look more friendly,” I said once she had taken her place on a tall stool in the apartment of our neighbor.

The photographer stood at the window, smoked, and flicked the ash onto the heads of passersby below. He said there was no point in picking up the camera as long as Aminat insisted on looking like a crocodile.

“I hate kids,” he said, and I couldn’t resist twisting a lock of Aminat’s hair around my finger and yanking it.

“That’s what you do to my nerves all the time,” I hissed as tears welled up in Aminat’s eyes from pain and rage.

At that moment, the neighbor turned around, shouted at me to step aside, and held the camera to his face.

He clicked away for an hour, changing the film multiple times, adjusting the lens, trying shots from the front and the side. I kept running in to poke Aminat in her back with my forefinger to make her sit up straight or to tousle her hair. When it was over, Aminat climbed off the stool and scratched her head. There were beads of sweat on her forehead. Her hair was stuck together. And she looked light-headed from the much-too-small dress.

I didn’t have high hopes when the neighbor knocked on our door and grumpily told me the photos were ready. I went along with him trying to inwardly steel myself to fight over the money. When I caught my first glance at the rectangular photos spread out on his kitchen table, I thought they were shots of someone else. These pictures showed an angel, still very young, with a bottomless sadness in her dark black eyes, with her hair ruffled by a light summer breeze. It wasn’t until I bent down closer to the table to have a closer look at the angel’s divine dress that I realized the shots were of Aminat.

I picked up a photo. It was like magic. Aminat’s otherwise defiant, angular face shone with melancholy. It hit you right in the heart, reminded you of the beauty of creation, and made you want to do something good right on the spot. Without hesitation, I pulled out the envelope with the money I’d gotten for my fur coat and slid it across the table.

“You are a true artist,” I said. “Thank you.”

I told Aminat she should draw a picture for Dieter. She brought me a white piece of paper with a naked tree in the middle. I shouted at her to put more effort into it. Then I had an idea: I looked through our old encyclopedia and found the picture of a Tartar woman in traditional costume. I placed the heavy book, open to that page, in front of Aminat.

“Who goes around looking like that?” asked Aminat.

“Your ancestors,” I said.

Aminat leaned down over the open pages and traced her finger on the colorful figures, the lopsided hats, the corded clothing. The encyclopedia had pictures of all the countless ethnic groups of the Soviet Union in their traditional garb.

“Are those real people?” she asked.

“Draw yourself in that outfit,” I said.

Against all odds, Aminat had fun with this task. She drew careful outlines of the traditional clothes and filled them in with colored markers. Over the collar she drew a red-cheeked face with dark slits for eyes and black hair pulled into two wreathed braids.

“Write your name underneath,” I said. “And on top write ‘for Dieter.’ Wait, write in German — I’ll show you how.”

I put the drawing into an envelope along with one single photo. I hadn’t shown the photos to anyone. I’d hidden them in my wardrobe beneath a pile of laundry. I understood: the pictures were like a drug and needed to be carefully administered in doses.

I wrote Dieter’s address on the envelope and took it to the post office.

It took two weeks. Then the phone rang. My envelope had arrived. Dieter sounded very bashful. He asked me to pass along his thanks to Aminat for the picture she’d drawn. I promised to do so. I waited for him to say something about the photo, but Dieter didn’t mention it. So he had understood everything correctly.

“Invitation,” I repeated in my fluid school German. “Invitation for three.”

A month later a stranger called and said Dieter had given him a package to bring to us. I picked it up. It was a beautiful plastic bag printed with a picture of bright red strawberries. Back home I called Aminat and Sulfia into the kitchen and turned the bag upside down above the table. A large brown envelope fell out in which we found the invitations. In addition, three chocolate bars, a packet of hazelnuts, a pack of peppermint gum, and two little tubes filled with crumbly, fruity-smelling tablets (we turned them all around until we were finally able to decipher the word “vitamins” on the side), a tin of milk powder, and a large white packet decorated with pink cherry blossoms and a smiling woman’s face. The German words “sanitary napkins” on it made me think that it might be for dressing wounds.

“Look, how nice of the foreigner even to include medical supplies,” I said to Sulfia.

The two of them were so busy looking through the various things that they didn’t notice the most important thing: a small white paper envelope full of Deutschmark notes.

“Think about what you want to bring,” I said. “We’re flying to Germany.”

It took months and a lot of money and aggravation before we had everything sorted. I went to Moscow, twenty-seven hours by train, and stood in line at the German embassy until I was ready to drop. By the time I had the visas and plane tickets I had assembled the necessary certifications: that none of us was insane, none had a contagious disease, none had served time in prison. I went from one government office to the next, always with a stockpile of little gifts in my bag.

The last of our money I spent on souvenirs. I called friends and acquaintances and collected things that, as best I could tell, would please people in Germany: painted wooden spoons in all different sizes, cast-iron statuettes, pins with cartoon characters on them.

We packed two big suitcases and tied them up with laundry line so they wouldn’t come open. It had been fifteen years since they had last been used. We had taken them to the Black Sea that time.

I was excited and very tired. Kalganow drove us to the airport. I looked out the window of the car at the rain and had no desire ever to return.

Deeply saddened, Kalganow carried our bags. Sulfia wanted to help him, but I held her back.

“We’ll bring you back something,” I said to cheer him up.

“Not necessary, Rosie,” he said.

He kissed me, bowed to Aminat, and hugged a sobbing Sulfia. She was getting on my nerves, and I said someone like her should only be allowed to travel as far as the other side of town.

I felt empty and exhausted and tried to cheer myself up by envisioning the winter boots I’d buy first thing in Germany.