The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

The country that had never conquered us

Sulfia and Aminat had never flown before, and my only experience had been thirty years prior. We were as excited as children, at least Sulfia and I were. Everything seemed magical, especially the stewardesses and the seat belts.

“Look, look!” Sulfia kept saying.

She pointed out the window, though the view was always the same: clouds, white like cotton candy. Aminat sat silently staring straight ahead. Her cat Parasite had taken the chaos of the packing process as an opportunity to slip out of the apartment, and at the time of our departure had yet to turn up again. Apparently the animal was more intelligent than I gave it credit for.

We landed in Moscow. We had to wait a day and a half for the connecting flight.

I had heard about a new restaurant that had opened on Moscow’s Gorki Street. Apparently people stood in long lines to get into it. We took the Metro there and it was true: when you were at the front of the line you couldn’t even see the back. Of course, we got in line. I took turns with Sulfia — one of us waited while the other rested her legs on a park bench in the sun. After three and a half hours we reached the front. We studied the huge colorful photos of the food on the wall and then read out the names of the things we wanted, names we had never heard before. We ordered thinly sliced, crispy, light potatoes, meat in an unbelievably soft roll, and hot dough pockets filled with apples and berries. Everything was daintily wrapped in paper boxes and placed in a paper bag.

“This is a very good restaurant,” I said to Sulfia.

We stood around a tall table and unpacked our food. Before long, all the little boxes were empty. I put two into my bag — they looked very practical. As we left the restaurant we had to pass a woman who said, “Thank you for your visit, we look forward to seeing you again soon!”

Sulfia was so confused she cowered against the wall. Not even I could come up with a good answer.

Once we were a few meters beyond the door, I turned around and looked at the long line of people waiting to get into this temple of culinary pleasure. I had a feeling we had just tasted the West.

We flew from Moscow to Frankfurt. It was no longer as exciting. Aminat looked quietly out the window. She was tired. We had spent a lot of time walking around Moscow, and she had kept having pain in her stomach.

The air in Frankfurt was warmer than at home. I changed the time on my watch.

“Now we’ll live according to German time,” I said.

Our bags hadn’t been stolen while in transit. At the passport control, my heart beat so wildly that I was afraid it might pop out of my chest. I was worried something would be wrong with our passports or visas.

A young man in a sharp uniform opened my passport. His hands were clean and groomed like a woman’s. He looked at the hologram in the visa, quickly paged through the passport, looked at my photo and at me. I felt my smile freeze. He winked, closed the passport, and handed it back to me. I grabbed it, took Sulfia by the elbow (her passport had been of much less interest to the immigration official), and took Aminat with my free hand. We walked a few more meters and were finally officially in Germany.

I could hardly believe it: we were abroad, all three of us — and not just anyplace abroad, but in Germany. The country that had never conquered us. I was proud of myself. Aminat was only twelve and had already crossed an international border, something I had only read about in books before.

Everything was very clean. Our shoes reflected on the flooring.

We walked with our bags to Dieter.

At first I hadn’t recognized him. Sulfia saw him first and pointed with her finger — a gesture I’d managed to curtail in Aminat.

His face had gotten rounder. His hair was short, and his pink scalp showed through it. His stomach hung over his belt.

“Guten Tag!” cried Sulfia, running ahead and wrapping her arms around his neck.

Aminat and I watched as he patted her back and then tried to shake her off.

It didn’t occur to him to help us carry the bags. He walked alongside us and pointed the way with hand motions. Between indicating directions he tried to take Aminat by the hand, which Aminat deftly managed to avoid.

Germany seemed green and not very densely populated. We drove for a long time in the car. We left the fast roads, drove on smaller, narrower roads, drove past hills and forests.

“Here we are,” said Dieter as we stopped in front of a multistory gray building.

Apparently he didn’t own the entire building, just the apartment on the top floor. I looked around as soon as we entered. The first thing I noticed were the angular walls. They looked as if they might fall on your head at any time. I put down the suitcase and went on into the apartment. It was difficult to tell where one room ended and the next began. There were no doors.

I went through an arch and found myself in the kitchen. The whole place was stark and bare. No carpets, not much furniture. It looked as if someone had just moved in and their boxes had yet to be unpacked. I asked myself how someone could live here. But everything was very clean. Dieter showed us a room with a table with a real computer on it, a couch, and, next to that, an air mattress.

We understood we were to sleep here.

“Two people,” said Dieter. “And Aminat — here.”

He pointed with his hand to the living room.

“What’s he saying?” asked Aminat nervously.

Nobody answered her.