The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

Elegant and agile

It came to my attention that I still lacked a few skills. Everyone here knew how to swim, for instance — even the little kids. Even though you saw four-year-olds still in diapers, five-year-olds running around with pacifiers, and kids who started school unable to read or add. Even those spoiled children knew how to swim. They were taken by their mothers — my clients — to swim classes, the trunk of the car filled with bathing suits, towels, inflatable floatation devices, kickboards, and pool noodles. And in the summer they all drove to the beach.

I told Dieter he should take our child to the beach. Aminat could barely swim and I couldn’t swim at all. That was a situation that had to be remedied. We shouldn’t be any less skilled than the rest.

Dieter said maybe the year after next — there was no way he could do it on short notice. It was winter.

God consoled me: no sooner had I said this to Dieter than one of my clients asked whether I had time the following week to go with her family to the mountains. She wanted to take her husband and two kids to Switzerland. She had planned to take her mother-in-law to look after the pair of spoiled brats each afternoon. But the mother-in-law had intestinal polyps and had to undergo an operation.

When I was younger, Kalganow went cross-country skiing in the forest almost every weekend. Sometimes I went along, but for the most part I wasn’t bothered with such idiotic pursuits. So I could ski, though I’d never been to the Alps. Aminat didn’t know how to ski and also had never been to the Alps.

My client and her husband agreed to let Aminat come. They agreed to everything.

They drove there ahead of us and took our luggage with them. My client had given me a snowsuit she no longer fit into and a red ski jacket for Aminat. I bought a pair of sunglasses and two pairs of pants and we were all set. We took the train, transferring in Basel and getting out in Chur. There I caught sight of the mountains, very high, gray with snow-covered peaks. From Chur we got in a bus that wound its way up mountain roads. We sat directly behind the driver. It was the spot where you had the best chance of survival in case the bus fell off the edge of the cliff.

Aminat had turned all green beneath her pimples. She didn’t do well on bus and car rides. She had inherited too much from her mother. We drove past forests, snowdrifts, and little villages. When the bus arrived at the next to last stop and we got out, Aminat threw up in the snow. Thankfully she was all finished before my client showed up to take us back to their vacation condo.

I had forgotten what it was like to be around so much snow. It glittered and smelled like watermelon, just like in my childhood.

The condo had two bedrooms. One had a double bed for my client and her husband, who was a senior government prosecutor, and the other had bunk beds. My client’s children, Julius and Justus, slept next to each other on the top bunk. Aminat and I shared the lower bunk.

My employer was glad I was there. She didn’t have her kids under control. In the morning, Julius and Justus went to skiing class. The senior government prosecutor plunked helmets on their heads, put their feet into ski boots, and pulled them on their skis to a little igloo, where other little brats were standing around on tiny skis.

It was my duty to pick up Julius three hours later, cook him lunch, and put him down for a nap. We picked up his older brother later. After naptime I put Julius on a sled and pulled him around. We went to the bottom of the ski lift and watched people swooshing down the hill. I couldn’t get enough of it. They all looked so graceful. In this setting, Aminat’s scowl suddenly bothered me. Her facial expression was ruining my stay, and probably that of my client as well. I told Aminat she had to wipe that look off her face.

The first night I made goulash and spaetzle. My employer and her prosecutor sat at the table with red cheeks, and the children were too tired to whine. Well-fed contentedness reigned.

“You’re a jewel,” said my client.

“I know,” I said.

Now there was only one more thing I needed: to ski.

I was the first one up in the morning and made coffee and toast, and set the table. The children were difficult to wake. They slept soundly and were still tired, but they had to get to their skiing class. I executed all my duties flawlessly. By the time the parents emerged from their room, their kids, Aminat, and I were seated at the table.

“Do you know how to ski?” my client asked me.

“I’ll be a quick study,” I said in my unimpeachable German. “And so will Aminat here.”

I didn’t ask her for anything. She booked spots for us at the ski school on her own. We rented skis and went to meet our private instructor at the lift. In my jacket pocket I had the prosecutor’s mobile phone. If the kids got into any trouble, I would get the call, not their parents.

I had already realized the men around here were good-looking and very healthy. These weren’t men who sat around the office. They did lots of exercise out in the fresh air. Wiry, not too tall, with black hair and blue eyes. Our instructor was named Corsin. He led us to a kiddie slope and showed us how to ski. I mastered it immediately.

“You’re talented,” Corsin said to me. I found him charming. He took a very informal tone with me, which normally bothered me. He probably didn’t realize how much older I was than him.

Aminat embarrassed me. All the other girls her age could ski very well. And they looked good. Aminat, on the other hand, was a clumsy beginner whose basic motor skills stood out for their awkwardness. She didn’t have good coordination like me.

My employer was prepared to pay for three mornings of private lessons. I wanted to be able to ski like everyone else at the end of those three days.

On our last morning together, Corsin took us up the mountain on the lift. I shared a T-bar with Corsin; Aminat had one to herself. We could see her from behind. Several times she looked as if she was going to fall off the lift. I wished it would just happen. She clung with every ounce of strength to the lift, flailed with her legs, and got her skis tangled with each other. It was a wonder that she didn’t fall. The way down was just as disastrous for her. I skied on ahead, elegant and agile.

After the final session Corsin gave me a piece of paper with his number on it. It looked like something a little kid had made in art class to look like a business card.

“Give me a call if you come back next year,” he said.

I didn’t let myself feel sad. In fact, I was happy — in the mountains, on skis, living very close to the way I felt befitted me.