Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (66 page)

[
We’re sitting in the foundation’s offices, which are just a few small rooms. The telephones never stop ringing.
]

Yesterday, I saved a girl’s life…She managed to call me from the car while a group of cops were driving her out to the forest. She called me and whispered, “They grabbed me off the street, and now they’re taking me out of the city. All of them are drunk.” She told me the license plate number…They had been too drunk to search her and confiscate her phone. The girl had just come from Dushanbe…a beautiful girl…I’m an Eastern woman, I was very little when my mother and grandmother began teaching me how to talk to men. “You can’t fight fire with fire, you can only use wisdom,” my grandma would say. I called up the police station: “Hello, my dear man, I’ve just been notified of a strange situation unfolding. Your boys are taking our girl somewhere she shouldn’t be going, and they’re drunk. Call them before things take a bad turn. We know their license plate number.” On the other end of the line, it’s a constant stream of obscenities: “These
churki,
those black monkeys who must have just climbed down from the trees, why the hell are you wasting your time on them?” “Darling, listen, I’m a black monkey myself…I’m your mother…” Silence! After all, the person on the other end is human, too…That’s what I pin all my hopes on…Little by little, our exchange turned into a conversation. Fifteen minutes later, they turned the car around…they brought back the girl…They could have raped her, killed her. In the forest…I’ve had to pick girls like her up piece by piece on more than one occasion…Do you know what I am? I’m an alchemist…We run a nonprofit—no money, no power, just good people. Our helpers. We aid and rescue the defenseless. Our results materialize out of nothing: just nerve, intuition, Eastern flattery, Russian pity, and simple words like “my dear,” “my good man,” “I knew you were a real man and wouldn’t fail to help a woman in need.” “Boys,” I say to the sadists in uniform, “I have faith in you. I know that you’re human.” I had this very long conversation with a police general…He wasn’t an idiot or some one-track-mind military type, he seemed cultivated. “Did you know,” I said to him, “that you have a real Gestapo man on your force? He’s a master of torture, everyone is afraid of him. Every homeless person and migrant worker he comes across ends up crippled.” I thought that he’d be horrified or at least get scared and start defending the honor of the uniform. But he just looked at me with a smile: “Tell me his last name. Good man! We’ll promote him, reward him. We need to take good care of such members of our staff. I’ll personally make sure that he gets an award.” I went numb. He went on: “To tell you the truth…We intentionally create impossible conditions for you people so that you’ll leave as soon as possible. There are two million migrant workers in Moscow, the city can’t digest this many of you suddenly descending on us. There are just too many of your kind here.” [
Silence.
]

Moscow is beautiful…You and I strolled through the city and you kept exclaiming, “Moscow has become so beautiful! It’s a real European capital now!” I don’t feel this beauty. When I walk along looking at the new buildings, I always remember: Two Tajiks died here, falling from the scaffolding…Here, a man drowned in cement…I remember how ridiculously little people were paid to dig these foundations. Everyone makes money off them: bureaucrats, policemen, building managers…A Tajik street cleaner signs a contract saying he’ll earn thirty thousand rubles, but they only ever pay him seven. The rest is taken from him, redistributed among various bosses…Bosses and bosses’ bosses…Laws don’t mean anything—around here, it’s all about money and muscle. The little man is the most vulnerable creature on earth, even an animal in the forest is more protected than he is. For you, the forest protects the animals; for us, it’s the mountains…[
She falls silent.
] I spent most of my life under socialism. I remember how much we idealized man, I too used to hold human beings in high regard. In Dushanbe, I worked at the Academy of Sciences. I was an art historian. I thought that books…that what men had written about themselves was the truth…But actually, it’s only a tiny sliver of the truth. I haven’t been an idealist for a long time now, I know too much. This girl comes in to see me all the time, she’s unstable…She used to be a famous violinist. What made her lose her grip? Maybe it was people constantly saying to her, “You play the violin—what good is that? You know two languages—what for? Your job is to clean up, sweep the floors. You’re nothing but slaves here.” This girl, she doesn’t play the violin anymore. She’s forgotten everything.

There was also this young man…One day, the police caught him somewhere in the suburbs of Moscow, took his money, but it wasn’t enough for them. They got mad. Drove him out to the forest. Beat him. It was the middle of winter. Freezing cold. They stripped him down to his underwear…Ha, ha, ha…Tore up all of his documents. And yet, here he was, telling me the story. I asked him, “So how did you make it out of there alive?” “I was sure I was going to die, I was running barefoot through the snow. Then suddenly, it was like a fairy tale, I saw a little hut in the middle of the woods. I knocked on the window, and an old man came out. He handed me a blanket so I could warm myself, poured me tea, and served me jam. Gave me clothes to wear. The next day, he led me to a large village and found a trucker who would take me back to Moscow.”

That old man…he is Russia, too…

—

She is called into the next room, “Gafkhar Kandilovna, someone is here to see you.” I wait for her to return. I have time. I think about the things I heard in Moscow apartments.

IN MOSCOW APARTMENTS

—We’ve been overrun…That’s the Russian soul for you, we’re too kind…

—The Russian people are not at all kind. That’s just a widespread misconception. They’re maudlin, sentimental, but they’re not kind. Someone killed a stray dog and made a video of it. The whole Internet blew up. People were ready to lynch the guy who did it. But when seventeen migrant workers were burnt alive at a market—their boss would lock them up in a metal wagon at night along with his goods—the only people who stood up for them were human rights advocates. People whose occupation it is to stand up for everyone. The general feeling was, “These people died, others will come to replace them.” Faceless, voiceless…strangers…

—They’re slaves. Modern-day slaves. All they have are their dicks and their sneakers. And back in their homeland, things are even worse than they are in the most rotten Moscow basement.

—A bear accidentally wound up in Moscow and survived the whole winter here. All he ate was migrant workers—because who counts them…Ha, ha, ha…

—Before the fall of the Soviet Union, we lived together like one big family…That’s what they taught us in political literacy classes…Back then, they were “guests in the capital,” now they’re
“churkas”
and
“khaches.”
My grandfather would tell me about how he defended Stalingrad alongside Uzbeks. They all believed that they were brothers forever!

—What you’re saying surprises me…They’re the ones who decided to split off from us. They wanted freedom. Did you forget that? Remember how they’d murder Russians in the nineties? Rob them, rape them. Chase them out of their homes. A knock on the door in the middle of the night…They break in, some holding knives, others machine guns: “Get the hell out of our country, you Russian swine!” Five minutes to pack…and a free trip to the nearest railway station. People would run out of their apartments in their slippers…That’s how it was…

—We remember the humiliations suffered by our brothers and sisters! Death to the
churkas
! It’s hard to rouse the Russian Bear, but once he’s up, there’ll be rivers of blood.

—The Central Asians bashed the Russians’ faces in with their gun butts. Whose turn is it now?

—I hate skinheads! All they know how to do is beat innocent Tajik street cleaners to death with hammers or baseball bats. At rallies, they shout, “Russia for Russians, Moscow for Muscovites.” Well, my mother is Ukrainian and my father’s Moldovan—only my maternal grandmother is Russian. So what does that make me? What criteria are they planning on using to “cleanse” Russia of non-Russians?

—Three Tajiks can do the job of one dump truck. Ha, ha, ha…

—I miss Dushanbe. I grew up there. Studied Farsi. The language of poets.

—I dare you to walk through the city holding a poster that says, “I love Tajiks.” You’d get beaten up instantly.

—There’s a construction site next door.
Khachi
scuttling about like rats. Because of them, I’m scared of walking home from the store at night. They could kill you for a cheap cellphone…

—Says you! I’ve been mugged twice—both times, it was Russians. The time I almost got killed in my building hallway—also Russians. I’m so fed up with those God-bearing people.

—So you would let your daughter marry a migrant?

—This is my hometown. My capital. And they’ve showed up here with their Sharia law. On Kurban Bayram,
^*2
they slaughter their sheep right under my windows. Why not on Red Square then? The cries of the poor animals, their blood gushing everywhere…You go outside, and here, and there…you see red puddles all over the sidewalk. I’m out walking with my kid: “Mama, what is that?” That day, the city goes dark. It stops being our city. They pour out of the basements by the hundreds of thousands…The policemen press themselves against the walls in terror…

—I’m dating a Tajik. His name is Said. He’s as beautiful as a god! At home, he was a doctor; here, he’s a construction worker. I’m head over heels for him. What do I do? We go walking in the parks or get out of the city altogether so that we won’t run into anyone who knows me. I’m afraid of my parents finding out. My father warned me, “If I see you with a darkie, I’ll shoot you both.” What does my father do? He’s a musician…he graduated from conservatory…

—If a “darkie” is out walking with a girl…and she’s one of our girls…People like that ought to be castrated.

—What do people hate them for? Their brown eyes, the shape of their noses. For no reason at all. Everyone has to hate someone: their neighbors, the cops, oligarchs, the damn Yankees…It doesn’t matter! There’s so much hatred in the air…You can’t get through to people…

“The uprising I witnessed terrified me for the rest of my life”

[
It’s lunchtime. Gafkhar and I drink tea out of Tajik bowls and continue our conversation.
]

Someday, the things I remember will drive me insane…

1992…Instead of the freedom we had all been waiting for, civil war broke out. People from Kulob started killing people from Pamir, and Pamirites started killing Kulobites…People from Karategin, Hisor, and Garm all splintered off. There were posters all over the city: “Hands off Tajikistan, Russians!” “Go back to Moscow, Communists!” This was no longer the Dushanbe I loved…Mobs roamed the streets, armed with metal fixtures and rocks…Completely peaceful, quiet people turned into murderers overnight. Just yesterday, they were absolutely different, calmly drinking tea at the
chaikhana;
today they were walking around ripping women’s stomachs open with metal rods…Shattering shop windows, smashing kiosks. I went to the market…Hats and dresses hung from the branches of the acacias, the dead lay on the ground—all in one heap, people and animals together…[
She is silent.
] I remember it was a beautiful morning. For a moment, I forgot about the war. It seemed like everything would go back to the way it was before. The apple trees were in bloom and the apricots…No signs of war anywhere. I opened the window wide. Immediately, I saw this roving, dark mob headed in my direction. They walked in silence. Suddenly, one of them turned toward me and we locked eyes…I could tell he was a poor man, the look in his eyes said, “I could come into your beautiful home right now and do whatever I want, this is my time…” That’s what his eyes told me…I was completely horrified…I leapt away from the window, shut the blinds, one set, then another, locked the doors, bolted all the locks, and hid in the innermost room. There was fervor in his eyes…There’s something satanic about a mob. I’m scared of even remembering it…[
She cries.
]

I saw a Russian boy being murdered in the courtyard. No one went out to help him, everyone just closed their windows. I ran outside in my bathrobe: “Leave him alone! You’ve already killed him!” He lay there without moving…They left. But soon, they came back to finish him off—they were just kids, all of them were the same age as him. Boys…just boys…I called the police. They stopped by, took a look at who was being beaten to death, and left. [
She falls silent.
] The other day, I heard some people in Moscow saying, “I love Dushanbe. What an amazing city it used to be! I miss it.” I was so grateful to the Russian who said that! Nothing but love can save us. Allah will not hear prayers said with ill will. Allah teaches us that you shouldn’t open a door that you won’t be able to close…[
Pause.
] They killed a friend of ours…He was a poet. Tajiks love poetry, every single household has books of poetry, even just one or two of them. To us, poets are holy men. You mustn’t harm them. And yet they murdered him! Before killing him, they broke his hands…because he wrote…Soon afterward, another one of our friends was killed…There wasn’t a single bruise on his body, everything was perfectly intact because they only hit him in the mouth…for what he said…It was spring. It was sunny and warm out, but people were killing one another…It made you want to go up into the mountains.

Everyone was leaving. Running for their lives. We had friends in America. In San Francisco. They told us to come. We rented a small apartment there. It was so beautiful! The Pacific Ocean…wherever you go, you can see it. I spent entire days sitting on the beach and weeping, I was incapable of doing anything else. I had come from the war, where you could be killed for a bag of milk…One day, I saw an old man walking along the shore, his pants rolled up, wearing a brightly colored T-shirt. He stopped in front of me: “What happened to you?” “There’s a war in my Motherland. Brothers are killing brothers.” “Then stay here.” He told me that I would be healed by the ocean and all the beauty…He comforted me for a long time. I wept. Kind words always had the same effect on me: Hearing them, I would be drowning in tears. Kind words make me cry harder than the gunshots had back home. Or the blood.