The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine (12 page)

“But why, little Sonja?” asked the Rosenbaum woman. “Look what a mess he’s making. That’s not good for the baby, either.”

The matter seemed settled once and for all. Old lady Rosenbaum could wipe up somewhere else with her rag and old man Rosenbaum could cover the living room with bits and pieces of the radio. But two days later all the parts had disappeared. I thought at first that the old woman had ignored Sulfia’s orders and thrown everything out. Instead, all the parts were back inside the housing of the device. Rosenbaum had reassembled the radio. When he plugged it in it began to emit crackly voices speaking in English. Sulfia clutched her hands together and kissed the old man on his bald head. Later the same day she brought him another old radio and the whole process started over again.

Rosenbaum and Sulfia’s daughter was born at exactly the same time that I succeeded in prying free a new apartment for the old Rosenbaum couple. To do so I had pounded down the doors of many different government agencies, shoved the paperwork concerning old Rosenbaum’s head injury in front of countless officials, handed out pounds and pounds of chocolates from Sulfia’s stockpile, and finally called Kalganow and demanded that as chairman of the union he fulfill his fatherly and grandfatherly duties. From all of that emerged a one-bedroom apartment which had nothing of the old grandeur of the Rosenbaums’ previous apartment, but which could be occupied immediately. Other victims of the explosion had to wait much longer for new accommodations. But they didn’t have Rosalinda on their side.

It wasn’t very big, but I considered that a plus: if things ever took a turn for the worse, Rosenbaum would think twice before beating a path for his parents’ place. I knew that a lot of young fathers had such thoughts when a newborn arrived. I was only too happy to help the Rosenbaums pack their things back into sacks and boxes.

The new baby was undoubtedly a Rosenbaum. It was even bald like the father. It was a heavy girl with a big head. They named her Jelena. Lena. This child wasn’t mine. It belonged to everyone. It was very ugly.

“I hope she improves quickly,” I said the first time I saw her.

Everyone agreed except Aminat, who screamed at me angrily, “How can you say something so mean about my sister?”

Aminat of all people had immediately taken the new baby into her heart.

Sulfia and Rosenbaum wanted to put the crib in their bedroom, where it belonged. But Aminat insisted that her sister sleep in her room at night. Everyone was opposed, myself most of all: if anyone needed their sleep, it was nine-year-old Aminat. But first Sulfia and then Rosenbaum gave in. The crib was carried into Aminat’s room.

Now my daughter Sulfia had a complete family. She had a husband who cooked a different porridge every morning and in-laws she worshipped. She had a big, exceptional daughter and a little ugly one, though the latter did come with a real father. She even had a cat.

I didn’t take care of little Lena. I already had a granddaughter, and for the Rosenbaums Lena was their first.

They were odd. They came by constantly and rocked the bald-headed, goggle-eyed child. They made sure the refrigerator and soup pots were always full. The old Rosenbaum woman washed Lena’s diapers and the young Rosenbaum ironed them on both sides.

Old Rosenbaum slowly became a bit more clear-headed. Sulfia put Lena in Aminat’s old yellow stroller, covered her with a pillow, and old Rosenbaum pushed her through the park. If it had been my child, I would never have let her out with a brain-damaged old man. Sulfia seemed to share this thought at least at some level, because when old Rosenbaum was out in the park with Lena, she often stood at the window and watched. There was a good view of the park from the ninth-floor window.

Unlike Aminat, Lena was perpetually sick. She had bronchitis and diarrhea and allergies to everything under the sun.

Must have been the Rosenbaum genes.

I had often noticed that things I wished for frequently came true. A sign that God was with me. Occasionally He overshot the target, but that was only because I’d failed to formulate my wish precisely enough.

It came to pass, for instance, that a great many Jews were returning to their historical homeland during these years. Everyone knew somebody who wanted to emigrate to Israel. Even the Rosenbaum family, to whom my daughter now belonged, began to prepare to flee our country.

I found out one evening when I came by to check on Aminat’s homework and fingernails. Sulfia sat in the kitchen crying, and Rosenbaum paced back and forth in the kitchen waving his hands as if swatting a swarm of mosquitoes. Aminat was playing in her room with little sniffling Lena.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

They were going to emigrate in three months.

“It’s not so bad,” I told Sulfia. “It’s nice and warm there.”

I was assuming that Aminat would stay with me. What would she do all alone among all those Jews? I’d heard that in Israel there were sandstorms and that they didn’t even have a proper alphabet.

“We will come visit,” I said.

“Who is ‘we’?” asked Sulfia, training her bunny-rabbit eyes on me.

“Aminat and I.”

“Ah,” said Rosenbaum.

Sulfia covered her face with her hands and groaned.

I was prepared to let Sulfia move far away with her new Jewish family. But Aminat emigrating was out of the question. Aminat was my child. I was happy that Sulfia had Lena now. Aminat was older, prettier, healthier. Aminat would be fine without Sulfia—she had me.

The situation was clear. I figured I could now move into Sulfia’s apartment. Three rooms for me and Aminat, with no roommate and no cleaning schedule for common areas. It was a pleasing prospect. I just had to be careful not to let Klavdia get her hands on my two bedrooms. I was sure she wouldn’t tell the housing authority I wasn’t living in the communal apartment anymore. Because then they would reallocate the rooms in a blink of an eye, and the new neighbors would never be as nice, as friendly, and as helpful as I was.

Sulfia looked worse and worse (if that was even possible). I told her she needed to eat more vitamins. She’d need them in Israel. Books—all labeled
ulpan
—lay strewn about their apartment along with brochures such as “Welcome, New Citizen.” Once I caught Aminat with one of the books in her hand. I went to take it away from her and said, “You don’t need that.”

She clutched the book and wouldn’t let go as I tugged on it from the other side.

“Papa says I should read it,” she said.

Suddenly she was calling Rosenbaum “papa.” It was like earlier, when I had to stop her from calling every male stranger on the street “papa.”

“You don’t need it,” I repeated, and succeeded in ripping the book away from her. As I did, the cover made an unpleasant sound. I placed the book as high on the shelf as possible so she couldn’t reach it.

I went to Rosenbaum, who was reheating noodles from the previous night in a frying pan, and asked, “Have you told Aminat yet?”

“What?”

He looked at me through his thick glasses with a friendly look on his face.

“About Israel.”

“Of course.”

“So why should she read those crazy books then?”

“Because it’s good preparation.”

“For staying here?”

“No,” he said in a friendly tone. “For emigrating.”

“Aminat’s not emigrating,” I shot back. “Did you not understand that? Aminat’s staying here, with me.”

He shook the pan back and forth and busily stirred the noodles. Before he answered me, he reduced the gas flame and turned his face, red from the heat, toward me.

“Aminat is coming with us. That was clear from the start.”

“But Sulfia . . . ” I gasped. It felt as though someone had slammed my head against the wall. “But Sulfia!”

“For Sulfia,” said Rosenbaum, dividing up the noodles onto four plates, “it was never a question. Believe me.”

Something had gone wrong in my life. I should never have allowed Sulfia to take up with a Jew. This was the consequence. Now my own daughter was bound to a Jewish family by an ugly, chubby-faced baby. And they wanted to leave; they always wanted to leave, and I had nothing against it. But what gave them the right to destroy me? What did they imagine would happen? What was I supposed to do without Aminat? Here in this city, or on earth at all? If Aminat disappeared from my life, she would take all color and sound with her. And then there was no point to anything anymore.

Rosenbaum whirled around Sulfia’s apartment now, putting things in boxes and hanging lists on the wall that he was constantly adding to or crossing things off of: “meet one last time with . . . ” or “desperately need to get . . . ” or “ask whether they want to have: what/who . . . ” or “documents.” He was very friendly to me, and behind the thick glasses the look in his eyes was so sympathetic as to be insulting.

I went to Sulfia’s clinic so I could talk to her undisturbed.

I waited for her in front of the entrance, as I had so many times before. Poor sick people stood around, leaned against the wall, bandages on their heads, legs, or arms, cigarettes in their hands. I didn’t even feel sorry for them anymore—because now I had it far worse than they did. They might be injured, but nobody had reached into their living bodies and ripped the very heart from their chests.

Sulfia emerged and walked right past me. She hadn’t seen me. Then she turned around, looked at me, surprised, and walked back.

“Mother, what are you doing here, for God’s sake?”

“I have to talk to you,” I rasped.

“Then come to our place.”

“No. I want to talk to you alone. Without him.”

“Without whom?”

“Without him. You need to come to my place.”

We took the trolley. Sulfia said nothing. She held her purse tightly in her lap. She finally had a nice handbag like a real woman. Brown leather with a gold closure.

“Nice handbag,” I said, though the time for pleasantries was long past.

Sulfia opened the bag, took out her wallet, a folded cloth handkerchief, and her date book, and handed it to me. The bag was empty; I looked inside to make sure. Then I handed it back to her. I couldn’t be bought off so cheaply.

I had difficulty unlocking the door. Every movement made a dull echo in my soul. I looked my loneliness in the face and it grimaced nastily back at me.

Without Aminat I would be alone and my life would have no meaning. I explained this to Sulfia.

“Why do you want to kill me?” I asked her.

“We could try to take you with us,” said Sulfia, avoiding looking me in the eyes.

I’m not a piece of luggage, I wanted to shout, but said nothing. I was less than a piece of luggage. Unlike all their stuff, they didn’t actually want me with them.

“What would I do among all those Jews?” I asked. “And what will my little girl do?”

“Aminat is
my
little girl, mother,” said Sulfia.

I didn’t know what else I could do at this point.

“Without Aminat I’ll wither away,” I said. “Please leave Aminat here. I’ll look after her well. I beg you. You’re my only daughter.”

Sulfia stood slowly and straightened out her dress.

“I’m very sorry, mother. Truly. Very.”

I didn’t say anything more. I helped them pack. I went over and helped Aminat pick out the toys and books she wanted to take. I didn’t want to make her sad too far in advance.

Aminat was in good spirits. She quizzed me about Israel. That’s when I realized she thought I’d be coming soon after them. Sulfia had been clever. Aminat would happily go with them, she’d wait for me—and she’d forget me.

One evening I knocked on Klavdia’s door. She was now broader than she was tall. Since the stream of men through my door had stopped, she was both frustrated and resigned. She was surprised at the way I looked. I had changed since I found out I would be losing Aminat. I’d become a poor sow.

But I had a plan, and Klavdia would help me with it.

I told her that Sulfia wanted to take a huge stockpile of sleeping pills with her to Israel because they were so expensive there.

“Does she want to resell them there?” asked Klavdia, businesslike.

“Of course. How many can you get hold of?” I asked.

Two days later I had fourteen packages of some pill. I didn’t know anything about this kind of thing—I’d never taken any medications in my whole life. Klavdia still had moxie. When she sensed there was a chance to make some money at something, she didn’t hesitate. She sympathized with me—less because of the imminent parting and more because from now on my daughter and granddaughter would be living among Jews. Klavdia was at odds with herself. On the one hand, she thought that any Jew who left the country was a good Jew. On the other, she begrudged them their sunny foreign destination. Klavdia thought the Mongolian steppes would be a much better place for them all to go.

The Rosenbaums threw a big goodbye party on their last day. They wanted to party until their departure flight. The suitcases and boxes were packed, some sent ahead. The apartment was nearly empty. There was just a large table in the middle, and on it all the salads and cakes the guests had brought. Afterward, one of Rosenbaum’s co-workers who owned a car was supposed to take the family to the airport. Their luggage would be transported in a separate car. No one said it outright, but the duty to clean up after the party fell to me. I didn’t say anything—cleaning up wasn’t going be a problem for me.

Aminat sang and danced and threw around strange words she’d picked up in her
ulpan
books. I sat silently on a chair and watched how Sulfia was hugged by countless people I’d never before seen in my life, how old Rosenbaum spent half the night drying his tears with Sulfia’s handkerchief, how promises were exchanged never to forget one another. I was probably the only one who knew at that moment that such promises are never kept.

Shortly after midnight I stood up. Tired Aminat had curled up on a mattress in the room she had shared with her sister. She held little sleeping Lena in her arms. I leaned down and kissed Aminat on her sweaty forehead.

Nobody noticed as I slipped out of the apartment. I hailed a taxi on the street and rode home. I gave the driver a big banknote and he obviously thought I was drunk. I told him always to be nice to other people. Now he thought I was insane.

At home I grabbed the sleeping pill packets, a glass, and a bottle of milk and went to my room. I undressed, threw on my bathrobe, and went to the bathroom. I washed myself thoroughly and then made myself up. I couldn’t have done it any more meticulously if it had been for my own wedding. Of course, marriage could be tried more than once, death usually not.

I liked what I saw in the mirror. My cheeks were pale with powder, and together with my black eyes and red lipstick, I looked beautiful and eternally young. Just a shame no one would think to take a picture of me in the coffin.

I sat down on the bed and began to open the packets and squeeze the pills from the blister packs. They fell onto the bedcovers and I shoveled them into a pile with my hands. I threw them in my mouth ten at a time, chewed them up, and washed them down with half a glass of milk. I hadn’t noticed any effects beyond an unusually strong heartbeat.

I realized I hadn’t left a farewell note. But it wasn’t necessary. I wouldn’t be found until after Aminat and Sulfia had already arrived in Tel Aviv. Sulfia would probably have to fly back to take care of the funeral. Oh well, she’d just have to get through it.

Now I felt strange. I couldn’t tell whether I had a stomachache or I was dizzy. I heard my pulse racing in my temples and pressed my head in my hands. At the same time I could tell I was about to throw up. That couldn’t happen. I shoveled some of the remaining tablets into the empty glass, poured in a little milk, and mixed it up with a spoon. The tablets didn’t dissolve, so I tried to break them up and realized my fingers were no longer responding. I was probably half dead. I poured the pill porridge into my mouth, filled the glass with milk, drank it down, and lay down quickly under the blankets. I folded my hands and closed my eyes. My second to last thought was of Aminat and my last of God.