The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

Traitors everywhere

Two days later the bumps were gone. But I didn’t take her back to the sanatorium. She looked healthy. At every meal I gave her a piece of bread and a clove of garlic and showed her how she should rub the garlic on the bread crust. Aminat set the bread aside and ate the garlic clove whole. I was sure she would not get sick anymore: there were lots of vitamins in garlic. I sent her back to kindergarten. One evening three days later I arrived to pick her up only to learn Aminat had already been picked up.

I was barely able to keep myself from punching the teacher who told me. I wanted to punch her right in the chest — right on the nametag pinned to her white smock. The smock was new and so was the teacher. I’d never seen her stupid face there before. She was very young and must have just finished her training and certification. You could see she hadn’t learned much from the pedagogical training. I had worked at a teacher’s college myself and knew how they worked. I knew the type of girls who came through those schools. They all thought of themselves as fond of children but were for the most part just lazy, interested only in boys. And they had stupid faces.

“Her mommy already came,” lisped the new kindergarten teacher chirpily.

I sat down on a low bench where the children sat to tie their shoes.

“What?” I hissed.

“Her mommy picked Anja up. Anja was so happy that today she wasn’t the last one picked up.”

I closed my eyes to collect myself.

“Her mommy is mentally handicapped,” I said calmly. “Her mother is an evil psychopath. Are you not aware that you’re not even to let her mother set foot on the premises?”

The idiot straightened a garland hung from the doorframe, a decoration for the national holidays celebrating the Soviet Army.

“No, I don’t know anything about that,” she said placidly. “I wasn’t given any instructions like that.”

I left without another word. Bitterly I realized that she was right. The protective wall I had erected around Aminat was built of paper, and it was just a matter of time before it collapsed. I had to admit to myself that I’d been too naïve, too goodhearted. At the end of the day this was fair punishment.

Except that Aminat didn’t deserve it.

I went home. Kalganow was already there. He was eating some of the meatballs I’d made the night before and left in a dish in the refrigerator. They were stone cold but heating them up would obviously have been too much for his meager abilities.

“SULFIA!” I shrieked, running to the phone.

I dialed the number of her dormitory.

“Sulfia Kalganova,” I shouted into the phone. “She kidnapped a small child.”

I could hear jovial voices in the background. They were celebrating.

“Lady,” said a voice, “Sulfia Kalganova hasn’t lived here for ages.”

I hung up the phone and staggered back into the kitchen. My husband had folded his hands across his stomach and sat staring out the window.

“When was the last time you saw Sulfia?” I cried.

He gasped with surprise.

“Two weeks ago, I think,” he mumbled. “When she, um, how should I put it — when she got married.”

I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t count on anyone: traitors were coming out of the woodwork. Now even Kalganow, that amoeba, that spineless creature, that venom-less jellyfish, had dared to deceive me. And once again I’d been so unsuspecting.

Now it came out: he had secrets. He had gone to see our daughter Sulfia and told me only now when there was no other choice. You simply couldn’t count on anyone in this world.

“Why didn’t you tell me, you animal?”

“Because she asked me not to,” he mumbled. “Because she’s afraid of you.”

“Afraid? Of me? Who could possibly be afraid of me? Nobody should ever be afraid of me. I only want what’s best. Put those plates in the sink, you tyrant.”

An hour later we left our apartment together. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to see everything. I wanted Aminat back. I wanted to make sure nothing bad had happened to her.

Even my husband could understand that. After I explained everything to him, he agreed and took me to see the restaurant where Sulfia had held her wedding reception. Astonishingly, it wasn’t a bad restaurant. Then we took the bus eleven more stops so he could show me the street where she lived now.

He knew everything! The only thing he didn’t have was a telephone number, he said. They didn’t have a phone line yet; it was a new building.

Sulfia’s husband, Kalganow explained, was a former patient of hers. He had been hit by a car and was patched back together in her ward. She had nursed him back to health. On the day he was released, he asked her to marry him. His name was Sergej.

“Sergej,” I snorted disdainfully, and, dragging my Kalganow behind me, started down the street between the endless rows of newly constructed nine-story apartment buildings.

“Not so fast, Rosie,” he begged.

“Aren’t you at least sure which street she lives on, you tarantula?”

He squinted. It was snowing, and snowflakes clung to the black eyelashes I had so loved twenty-five years ago.

“I think so,” he said.

“You think so? You only think so? You don’t know for sure?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anything. What does everyone expect from me? There’s nothing I can do.”

I punched him between the shoulder blades. My fist sank into the expensive leather of his two-year-old shearling coat. I made sure he dressed well. He was after all my husband — and he also had an important position at the workers’ union. I left him standing there and walked on ahead. He grabbed me and I hit him again. He was a turd, but he was the husband I was stuck with.

Then I forgot about Kalganow for a second because somewhere a child started to cry.

“Do you hear that? Do you hear that? Is it her?”

“What?” My husband stood there looking around.

“That. A baby crying.”

My husband strained to hear. I had the impression that beneath his fur hat his ears perked up to hear better.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said.

“You’re deaf.”

We walked up and down the street a little more.

I looked at the buildings, the balconies, the windows. Skis and skates sat on the balconies. Bags of deep-frozen meat hung from the windows. Inside on the windowsills were houseplants and cats. A few of the balconies were piled with dilapidated furniture, worn-out shoes, and empty bottles. These people had just moved in and had already created such pigsties. In the window boxes fresh snow covered dead flowers. Here and there I saw old Christmas trees draped with tinsel.

My husband swore that Sulfia hadn’t given him her address. She had probably suspected he wouldn’t be able keep mum.

“I don’t know the address, Rosie, scout’s honor,” he said.

Several thousand people lived in the buildings here on this street. I tried to figure out how long it would take to go into every building and ring every doorbell.

Just then a woman came along pushing a stroller with a snotty little brat in it. I wasn’t fooled for a second: the child was too small and ugly to be Aminat.

My husband’s nose was running. Tears began to trickle from his eyes. It was extremely cold and he looked miserable. Why was I, of all people, stuck with someone like him at my side? At least he wasn’t complaining.

“We’re going home,” I said.

“Really?” He was as happy as a child. He lacked perseverance and just wanted to get warm, drink a cup of tea, eat meatballs.

“We’re going back to the bus stop, for your sake, you snake,” I said, turning toward the bus stop and walking off.

I went back five times, alone. I walked up and down the street at various times, day and night. I stopped people coming out of buildings and asked them whether they knew a Sulfia Kalganova. Nobody knew her. I asked them whether they’d seen a scrawny Tartar woman holding hands with a pretty little girl. Nobody had seen them.

Three weeks later I finally ran into her.

It was both of them. Sulfia held the hand of my little girl. I could see immediately that Aminat was carelessly dressed. She didn’t have a scarf on, and her hat had shifted so that her ears were exposed to the biting cold. Her black hair hung in her face. Her nose was red. She definitely had a cold, and no wonder with this mother.

I took a few steps to the side and hid behind a dumpster. Sulfia and Aminat walked past me hand in hand. I watched them turn toward a building and saw which doorway they entered. I hurried after them. I listened to the elevator go up for a long while, up to the top floor. Somewhere way up above I heard a door close.

It smelled good in the foyer of this building because it was still new. The scent of paint and chemicals hung in the air, a very clean smell, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. A year from now the freshly painted walls would be covered with scribbling, drunks and cats would have pissed in every corner, and it would be lucky if even a hint were left of the hope for a better life that was built into every new house.

A short time later I stood on the ninth floor, just beneath the roof of the building. There were four doors on this floor. Behind one of them I heard the warbling of a child’s voice I recognized.

I didn’t ring Sulfia’s doorbell. Not yet. Stepping lightly I descended the stairs, went outside, and breathed in the cold, watermelon-scented winter air. Hope filled my lungs; I could have floated off like a balloon.