The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine (2 page)

The child, a little girl, seven pounds, twenty inches long, was born one cold December night in 1978 at Birthing Center Number 134. I had a feeling even then that she would become the type of kid who could survive anything without batting an eye. She was an unusual child and screamed very loudly from day one.

My husband and I picked up the baby in a taxi when she was ten days old. Along with our daughter, of course.

The little child nestled in a folded knit blanket piped with pink. It was standard issue at the time. My husband took a picture of us: me with the baby in my arms, next to me Sulfia holding a bouquet of plastic flowers lent to us by the clinic to use in the photos—obviously there was no place to get fresh flowers in winter. The baby’s face was barely visible, a little flash of red between the folds of the blanket. I had completely forgotten that newborns are so tiny and ugly. This one began to scream in the taxi and only let up a year later.

I held the baby in my arms and studied its face. I realized that the fatherless baby looked more like me than like any adult I knew. She was, despite my initial impression, not really ugly. Up close I could see that she was actually a pretty little girl—particularly when she was quiet.

At home we unwrapped her and laid her on the bed. The baby girl had firm little muscles and strong reddish skin. Her tiny arms and legs writhed around and the bed shook beneath her. And she screamed nonstop.

Klavdia’s curious face peered around the doorframe: “Oh, how cute! Already home? Congratulations! Have you fed that baby? The screaming’s unbearable.”

Sulfia sat in a comfy chair and smiled deliriously. My husband leaned down and frowned at his first grandchild. I had the feeling there was something he didn’t like about her. Perhaps he was looking for traces of his supervisor in her little face.

“What’s his name?” asked Klavdia from the doorway.

“It’s a girl!” I cried so loudly that the baby stopped screaming for one brief moment and looked up at me, surprised. “A girl! We have a granddaughter.”

“Okay, okay. What’s its name?” Klavdia asked.

“Aminat,” I said. “Her name is Aminat.”

“What?” said Klavdia, who had always insisted on calling my daughter, whom she’d known since she was a baby, Sonja, and me Rosa, which was at least derived from my actual name, Rosalinda. We had beautiful names that nobody else seemed to be able to deal with.

“That is, Anna, Anja,” my husband corrected. He always wanted to be like everyone else.

“Aminat,” I repeated. I didn’t think it was so difficult to remember. My granddaughter would be called Aminat, just like my grandmother, who’d grown up in the mountains. Even if I turned out to be the only one, I would always call her by her real name, and who cared that in daycare, kindergarten, school, university, and then in whatever profession she entered she would soon become just another Anja. For me she would be Aminat, and I immediately began to pray that someday she’d be able to live a life where people didn’t automatically butcher her name.

“Her name is Aminat Kalganova,” I said, and Klavdia’s disapproving face disappeared from the doorway.

My husband put his hands over his ears and said, “That really is unbearable. Is she going to keep that up?”

My daughter Sulfia awoke from her trance and said, “I’m so hungry, mother.”

The baby girl I named Aminat, after my grandmother who had been born in the Caucuses, turned my life upside-down. Everything changed. Sulfia took the birth of her daughter as an opportunity to sleep nonstop. And she ate nonstop, as well. She liked to hold the baby,—she spoiled her that way, in fact—but she was otherwise good for nothing. She even proved useless whenever the new baby was hungry. During the night, Sulfia slept so soundly that she didn’t hear the miserable yelps of loneliness or the irate screams of hunger.

I lay on the other side of the wall and listened to the baby girl cry. I knew exactly what she needed. After the first three days I could distinguish the sounds. Eventually I couldn’t take it any longer and brought the crib into the room I occupied with Kalganow.

I liked the way she balled her tiny fists and rubbed her eyes when she was sleepy.

Mornings I sent Kalganow to the milk dispensary for baby formula—after all, someone had to make sure the baby got enough to eat. She drained every bottle in the shortest time, much more quickly than other children. My husband tried to protest when I asked him to go; the line of unshaven young fathers at the milk dispensary made him uncomfortable. But I determinedly sent him every morning. This was about his own flesh and blood. Kalganow said he wouldn’t treat his own granddaughter any better or worse than he would any other child because all mankind were of equal worth. I called him a fascist.

After a few months, Sulfia returned to her nursing program and I registered little Aminat for daycare. We all had to get on with our lives somehow. Aminat cried bitterly. I had to pry her fingers from my skirt every morning when I left.

My granddaughter Aminat was lucky. She hadn’t inherited any of the sluggishness or ugliness of her mother. She had my dark, almond-shaped eyes, my gently wavy black hair, a slender nose, and a bright look on her face. With some people, you can tell from the moment of birth whether they’re smart or not. I had been able to tell with Sulfia—and had been proved correct. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Sulfia had been conceived in bed, with my husband, rather than by a stranger in a dream.

Aminat was nonetheless a troublesome child. She didn’t want to go to daycare. She would start to scream as soon as we got there and I had to swat away the fingers she clawed into me. But I couldn’t keep showing up late for work.

When I went to pick her up each evening, I could hear her screaming from the street. I felt embarrassed. I didn’t like the fact that my granddaughter was disturbing the whole school. In fact, I felt I had to explain to the caregiver that Tartar children are usually well behaved. For the most part better than Russian children, though of course I didn’t say that. I didn’t want to sound arrogant.

Aminat fought all efforts at child rearing. I even caught myself referring to her as Anja in front of the kindergarten teachers because I was so ashamed of her. She was such a handful that I didn’t want to make things any more difficult for the teachers by also insisting on using an Arabic name. I could be so thoughtful at times.

My daughter Sulfia meanwhile forgot she had given birth to a daughter. She finished her vocational training and began working at a surgical clinic. But she hadn’t passed her exams, so she had to work as a nursing assistant instead of as a nurse. She performed the lowliest duties and nothing of importance. Still, I thought it was for the best for everyone.

I was just happy that despite her limited capabilities, my daughter had become a productive member of society and had even given birth to a daughter of her own, and a surprisingly fabulous one at that. Sulfia was out of the woods, leaving me time to see to raising my granddaughter. It was an important duty for a woman like me, and not such an easy one with a child like Aminat.

Very slowly I stopped paying attention to Sulfia. I no longer noticed when she came home or what she did when she was home. As a result, I was totally unprepared when I came home one day and found a note on the windowsill:
Dear Mama, dear Papa, I’m moving out and taking Anna with me. Please just leave me alone. Kisses, your Sulfia
.

Next to the note was the key to her room.

My heart beat loudly against my ribs as I threw open the wardrobe she and I shared and found it half empty. Sulfia’s neatly hung dresses and skirts were gone, her underwear was gone, her pantyhose were gone. Some much more important things were gone, too: Aminat’s rompers, socks, and sweaters, as well as her stuffed animals and bottles, her cloth diapers, and her favorite cup, the one with the yellow rabbit on it.

I didn’t give myself much time to wallow in depression. I took action, as was always my way. I opened the tin can where we kept the petty cash and took out a few banknotes. I hurriedly threw on my coat and ran out to the street. I stood on the curb and put out my thumb. Not nervously fidgeting the way some people did it, but unambiguously, with dignity. That always worked.

A small, dirty car stopped immediately. I always looked younger than I was, and people were happy to be able to help a woman like me.

It was impossible to tell what color the Lada was beneath the filth, but the car got me to Aminat’s kindergarten within eight minutes. The driver wouldn’t take any money, and I didn’t insist. He was understandably proud to have had a woman like me in his car. But I was too late. Sulfia had already picked up Aminat from kindergarten. She had planned everything.

Aminat’s cubby in the entry hall was empty. Her indoor shoes and her smock were gone. The worm she had kneaded out of modeling clay during arts and crafts was gone as well. Aminat wasn’t coming back to this kindergarten anymore, said one of the teachers, with an unusually official look on her face. Aminat’s mother had moved to the other side of town and put her child in a kindergarten that was closer to her new residence.

“Where?” I shouted.

She was unable to be of further assistance, said the bespectacled hag, clearly taking pleasure in my distress.

I have to say I wasn’t just distraught. I was surprised. For ages I’d thought that Sulfia had about as much drive as a garden slug. The fact that she was able to undertake such a Nacht und Nebel–style operation, to snatch Aminat away, register Aminat at a new kindergarten, and—perhaps most shocking—find a new apartment for two, without a peep to me or her father, did not fit the image I had of Sulfia.

“Say something,” I pleaded with my husband as he sat there in the kitchen chewing stuffed cabbage that evening.

“We have to make sure they don’t take away our second room now that there are two fewer people here,” he said.

He had no idea where she could have gone. For the first week, I kept waiting for a call from her, or at least from the police. The telephone was in the foyer, where all the inhabitants of our apartment could use it. I was the first one there every time it rang, but Sulfia didn’t ring and neither did anyone else.

By the second week I began to feel sick. I dreamed of Aminat, hungry and half-frozen, sitting in her crib and crying. Of how it wouldn’t register with Sulfia because she would be doing some stupid task or other while Aminat suffered.

“You have to call Sulfia at work,” I demanded of my husband as he gnawed on a chicken leg one evening. “You have to find out where she moved.”

My husband said our daughter was an adult.

“But Aminat’s not!” I shouted, and he looked up from his plate.

A week later I put on my maroon dress, let down my hair, made up my eyes and lips in the mirror, and took the trolley to the surgical clinic where Sulfia worked. I prayed she still worked there. I took up a spot in front of the entrance where a few poor, sick people in gray hospital gowns were also standing around breathing in the fresh air. I waited.

God rewarded me and sent Sulfia out after just two hours. She had on the old blue jacket that she’d been wearing since her school days and was carrying a mesh bag. In the bag I glimpsed five shriveled potatoes. It had always been impossible to send Sulfia shopping, especially to the green grocer. She let the worst, most rotten things be foisted on her without ever noticing.

When Sulfia saw me, her eyes opened wide, darkened, and took on a purplish hue. It made her eyes the color of overripe plums. She tried to retreat, but I made a beeline for her and grabbed the sleeve of her wretched coat.

“Where are you going, you turd?” I asked her with a friendly civility only I could muster in such a situation. “Where have you taken Aminat, you traitor to motherhood?”

She squirmed in my grip.

“Anja is
my
daughter,” she squeaked.

“Since when?” I said, my voice rising.

The poor, sick people followed our conversation with intense interest. Sulfia made it difficult for them, however, because she mumbled so much it was impossible to understand her. I had always told her: you must speak clearly and articulate. She murmured that I had alienated her child from her. That I had tormented her. That she was so happy to be free of my tireanny. (“Tyranny,” I corrected her.) That she’d rather live under a bridge than under the same roof with me.

“WHERE IS AMINAT?” I raised my voice a little more.

Sulfia began to talk as if she were crazy: she was the mother of her daughter, she didn’t recognize me anyway, had never seen me before in her life, she had no idea who I was, I should leave immediately, I shouldn’t come near her or her child, it was enough that I had ruined
her
life.

“You’ve found a man!” I realized, now genuinely surprised.

The sick people craned their necks and one whistled appreciatively.

“Finally!” I shouted. “Good! But where is Aminat?”

At this point Sulfia pulled herself free, opened her scrunched mouth into an irregular oval, and screamed: “Help! She’s going to kill me!”

Shocked, I let go of her sleeve.

Sulfia broke off her steam-whistle cries and ran. I watched her go. I could have gone in, found her workstation, and asked her colleagues for her new address. But who knew what Sulfia, sneaky as she was, had told them about me. I put my hair up into a sober bun with four hairpins and slowly got going.

My stupid daughter walked ahead and I followed. Her blue coat pointed my way. When she climbed onto a tram, I got into the second car. As usual she didn’t notice anything. Through the window of the trolley car I saw how she slumped into a seat with a blank look on her face.

A few stops later she stood up and got out. I hopped off behind her.

I followed her a few steps behind. Then she turned and went through a squeaky door and into a gray high rise. I recognized it immediately. It was the dorm for rural students who came to the city to train for hospital jobs and look for work and, first and foremost, for a husband. This was where Sulfia had moved, and no wonder. Even a much smarter person could not have found a real apartment in the city so quickly, and Sulfia wasn’t smart—she wasn’t even clever. She was a danger to herself and others. But she was a half-nurse, and somebody had obviously taken pity on her and assigned her a bed. Somewhere in this stinking dump was my beloved grandchild.

I asked the woman who guarded the entryway for the room number of Sulfia Kalganova. I said Sulfia had kidnapped a child. The woman readily took me to my destination, up many flights of stairs, down long, dark hallways. Along the way she told me stories from her mess of a life. I listened and offered halfhearted responses so she would continue to lead the way.

The room was small and dirty. Aminat sat in a crib and looked at me. Her face and body were covered with green spots. She had chickenpox; I recognized it right away. I knew children’s diseases well, along with so many other things. Sulfia was sitting on her bed with her hands over her face. Her shoulders trembled. And all of this because she hadn’t listened to her mother.

When Aminat saw me, she grabbed the bars of the crib with both hands and began to rattle them. Sulfia sprang to her feet, aghast, but I shoved her away. She bounced off my elbow and fell over. That’s how awkward she was.

I pulled my little girl out of the bed, grabbed the tattered blanket, and wrapped it around the child. Aminat clasped my neck.

I carried my priceless bundle out of that hellish building, flagged a private taxi, and rode home. A grandmother who had just rescued her grandchild. I didn’t have anything against my daughter Sulfia. I was happy to live as a family in our two rooms. Mature parents, young inexperienced daughter, little grandchild. It all fit. I was a fundamentally generous person, and I valued the interchange between generations. Helping support Sulfia in raising my grandchild didn’t bother me at all. Neither did drawing Sulfia’s attention to her own frequent mistakes. All I ever wanted was for her to improve herself.

What had happened now, however, was just not acceptable. Sulfia had endangered the child. She had left her alone and sick and had gone off to work. Of course she hadn’t been able to find a new kindergarten for her. She had infected Aminat with chickenpox she probably brought home from the clinic—despite her medical training she didn’t understand basic hygiene.

My mission was to save Aminat from squalor. Nobody else was going to do it. To every other person on earth, Aminat was nothing more than a neglected, unkempt little snot. It wouldn’t have been long before she had abscesses and lice.

As far as I was concerned, there were no two ways about it: Aminat would stay with me.

For a while after I’d saved Aminat, Sulfia didn’t have the heart to come by our place. She just called constantly and sobbed into the phone. Eventually she quit saying anything at all, but kept on calling. The phone would ring and all I’d hear when I answered was crackling. It disturbed Aminat’s afternoon nap, so I unplugged the phone.

I sent Kalganow to re-register Aminat in her old kindergarten, but it turned out to be difficult. It was only possible with the consent of the mother, as she had the right to custody. I thought about ways to relieve Sulfia of this right. It would certainly have been better for all parties—better for her, for Aminat, and, of course, for me. But Kalganow said a trial like that would hurt both me and him professionally, as everyone would then find out what an awful daughter we had produced. I gave Kalganow a big bouquet of gladiolas from my garden and told him to give it to the principal of the kindergarten and to compliment her. The obstacles to registration evaporated.