The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

Germany is a small country

I was happy that John decided to take care of Lena. He gave her a tour of the area, driving her around in his Mercedes. She had evidently coped well with the urn incident and squealed happily around the house. She was thrilled by how clean and green everything was in Germany. She had brought Russian books for me, and a poppyseed cake from a Tel Aviv bakery. She was a somewhat different Sulfia, lighthearted, with a gleam in her eyes. She was almost always in a good mood and she didn’t get upset about things or hold grudges. She asked me a thousand questions about me and her mother. But I didn’t feel like answering. John didn’t know anything about our history so luckily he couldn’t help her, either.

About Aminat I said only that she was away.

I found out from John why Lena had suddenly landed on our doorstep. She had a boyfriend who was a little bit older and who had a job that revolved around mass-produced Chinese copies of well-known paintings by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, that kind of thing. Lena’s boyfriend sold the copies in Germany. Why, of all things, an Israeli was selling Chinese forgeries wasn’t clear to me. It all sounded downright crooked to me. Lena said he wasn’t making much at it but that it allowed him to fulfill a dream — living in Germany. She’d been to visit him in Hamburg and now she was here with us. Finally, she said. And as she did she took my hand. I took it back.

John said she could stay at his house as long as she wanted. I gasped silently. I tried to talk to him about it and he said: “It’s no problem, I like your family.”

“This little whore is not family and never will be” were the words that came to me, but I swallowed them as I heard Lena’s laugh waft in from the garden, where she was talking on the phone. Sulfia had never laughed like that. Maybe she would have if she had ever had something to laugh about.

I was still waiting for Aminat. But who should ring? Kalganow.

I recognized him from the wheezing on the line long before he spoke a word. He had snored in exactly the same rhythm.

“Kalganow,” I cooed pleasantly. I was in a good mood because Lena was out somewhere and John had brought home some new kind of cookie. “Kalganow, are you calling in your sleep?”

“Rosie,” said Kalganow, choking back a miserable cough. “Rosie, my most beloved.”

It turned out his teacher of Russian and literature had died.

“When?” I asked mistrustfully.

“Two weeks ago,” he said.

The time that had elapsed since then was sufficient for him to realize he could no longer live without me — that, in fact, he never had been able to.

“Kalganow, I have a man!” I yelled. “I have an English gentleman with a big garden and twenty kinds of tea in the pantry.”

“It doesn’t matter, Rosie,” said Kalganow. “We’re still married for all eternity.”

“You wouldn’t even survive the plane ride,” I said.

“Then you can bury me, which would suit me just fine,” he answered.

I didn’t say anything to him about how expensive funerals were in Germany. I went straight to John. I said that Kalganow was an old relative of mine and didn’t have long to live. John kissed my hand. At that moment I wished very much that he would ask me to be his wife. I even thought about telling him how much I wanted it. After all, he had fulfilled all my wishes up to now — with the exception of seeing Aminat. But I was too proud. And besides, it was true: I was still married to Kalganow.

I sent Kalganow a plane ticket and the formal invitation necessary for a visa. With John, I picked him up at the airport. He had gone completely gray, still wore his old work jacket, and walked with a cane.

Kalganow wet my cheeks with his kisses and said that everyone around him was old or dead, and I was the only one who was still as fresh as in the days of our youth. And that was true, of course. John shook Kalganow’s hand and took his luggage — an old suitcase with holes in the leather and wire wrapped around it to hold it closed, and a big plastic bag. Kalganow leaned on me as we walked to the parking garage. Using all of our strength, John and I managed to help him into the backseat and balance him upright. We put his cane in the trunk.

Kalganow pressed his face to the window. He liked the autobahn. He kept letting out cries of excitement. It reminded me of my arrival in Germany. I felt ashamed — both for him and because of my memories.

“You are so beautiful, Rosie,” muttered Kalganow from the backseat.

I looked at John out of the corner of my eye. And although his face was as placid as always, I had the feeling that somewhere in the corner of his mouth a smile was hiding.

When we entered the house, Kalganow’s feeble eyes played a mean joke on him. Lena came down the steps calling “Grandpa!” loudly, and Kalganow opened his arms wide, barely keeping his balance. As he did, however, he cried out the name of our daughter. They fell into each other’s arms and said silly things to each other. I couldn’t stand it any longer and went to my bedroom, turned on the TV, and cheered on Aminat.

“Show them what you can do, my child. Don’t let me down.”

The four of us sat together on John’s leather sofa as Aminat was crowned the most talented young singer in Germany, having won the final round of viewer voting. Kalganow cried, I sat there frozen with excitement, unable to move. John’s face was as clear as a cloudless sky. Lena had her hands squeezed between her knees and shook her head.

“What is it?” I hissed at her, for in her ability to annoy me, she exceeded even Kalganow.

“Poor, poor thing,” whispered Lena.

I attributed the distressed look on Lena’s face to pure envy.

Aminat stood on the stage with a stone face as glitter rained down on her and white doves circled above her head. She now had a record contract. All the cameras were pointed at her and all the microphones awaited her words. The audience was giving her a standing ovation and she lifted one of her stiff, thin arms and waved. I just hoped the viewers wouldn’t realize what a mistake they had made in choosing her. But anyway, I thought, the first step to fame has been accomplished. She still had a lot ahead of her. Germany is just a small country.