The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine (9 page)

It was the simple truth: the best thing a woman could do for her family was to provide clear and firm guidance. They didn’t need coddling. When I entered the apartment with Aminat, Sulfia was standing in the kitchen washing up.

I pulled the petulant Aminat past her and into the bathroom, where I filled the tub with warm water and dribbled in some fragrant bubble bath Sergej had brought back from East Germany in a pretty bottle. You couldn’t buy bubble bath here, and we used it exceedingly sparingly. Aminat watched the mountain of foam rise as the water streamed into the tub. She didn’t move until I ordered her to undress. She took off her dress and threw it sloppily to the floor. I pushed it aside with my foot.

“Get in,” I said.

“Too hot,” said Aminat, after she dipped her big toe into the water.

“It’s hotter in hell,” I said.

Aminat hesitated, took her foot out, then put it back in and let it disappear in the foam before letting herself drop into the tub, splattering me from head to toe with water and bubbles.

“Watch what you’re doing!” I shouted.

Aminat dunked herself under again and again. Foam adorned her head like a crown. She blew the foam and laughed.

I didn’t let her enjoy her bath for too long. She didn’t deserve to. I told her to stand up in the tub and I scrubbed her from head to toe with a sponge. I wanted her to be really clean again. She put on a sullen expression that reminded me of her mother. I washed her body thoroughly with the sponge, all around and in every crevice.

I told her to kneel and I washed her hair twice. It was much too long. I got her out of the tub and wrapped her in a bath towel. She had red streaks on her skin; the sponge was old and hard.

“Now you are a big girl instead of a filthy pig,” I said.

I cut the nails on her fingers and toes. I cut the nails so short on a few of her fingers that they started to bleed. But she didn’t complain. I took her into the living room, spread newspaper on the floor, set a kitchen stool down on the papers, and had her sit down.

“Close your eyes,” I said, and she obeyed unsuspectingly.

Only as the fifth bundle of hair fell to the floor did she figure out what I was going to do.

“What are you doing?” she cried, trying to jump off the stool.

I pushed her back onto the seat.

“Stay seated or I’ll cut off one of your ears,” I said. She slapped at my hand. I grabbed her wrist.

“You saw how sick mama was, didn’t you?” I whispered in her ear.

Aminat looked at me out of the side of her eye, frightened, and nodded.

“And do you know why she was so sick? Because you’ve been such an ill-behaved child. You have been, haven’t you?”

Aminat now sat silently on the stool. Yes, she’d been bad, and she knew it. She had always had a clear idea of herself and the world.

“And you want mama to get better, don’t you?” I asked, cutting another clump of hair.

Aminat’s eyes followed the strands of hair as they fell to the floor. She nodded, turned her head, and caught her ear on the end of the scissors.

I took my handkerchief and wiped the blood from the blades.

“Then you should always do what I tell you,” I said. I could tell my words were being planted in fertile soil.

I had succeeded in breaking her resistance. The hardness disappeared from Aminat’s face. She blinked, she grimaced, and she began to cry silently as I walked around her with the scissors and continued to shorten her hair down to a few inches so she’d look like a clean, neatly groomed girl.

To be honest, she now looked like a boy, a pretty one with short hair. When I allowed her to stand up, she ran into the hall to look at herself in the mirror. She stayed there suspiciously long while I gathered up her hair. It was a substantial mound of glistening black hair. I couldn’t resist taking a lock, wrapping it in newspaper, and putting it in my pretty handbag. The rest I wrapped in a double layer of newspaper and carried to the trashcan. As I did, I went past Aminat, who was still standing in front of the mirror apparently unable to move. It must have appalled her—what little girl wanted to look like a boy? But a little outrage could do this child good.

I was wrong: Aminat was thrilled. She thought it was great to look like a boy. She decided to be one. If I’d realized the haircut would have this effect, I would have had second thoughts.

But there was no time to reconsider at this point. Now I had to deal with her work habits.

The first thing I did was visit her teacher. She was a short, round person with large glasses and her hair in a bun. I watched for her after class ended and the children came out of the classroom one after the other. I saw Aminat push a boy in the back with both hands so hard that his nose landed between the shoulder blades of the child in front of him. Surely the boy had started it.

Aminat was so busy she didn’t notice me. That suited me. I waited until the throng had headed off in the direction of the school cafeteria and then entered the classroom. I had on slightly shiny black pants that emphasized the nice shape of my legs. In my heels, I towered above the little teacher, and she looked up at me with shock as she continued to shuffle through some notebooks.

“I’m Aminat Kalganova’s grandmother,” I said, smiling pleasantly. “Please allow me to offer you this small present.”

I put a box of chocolate pralines down on her desk. I had found them at Sulfia’s; she often received gifts from patients. You had to wonder how these sick people managed to get their hands on chocolates and cognac, just the sorts of things that were beginning to vanish from shops. I had picked out a medium-sized box. Sulfia had never thought to give something to Aminat’s teacher. Unlike me, she didn’t understand how to establish a good rapport.

At first the teacher said she couldn’t accept them; then she said it wasn’t necessary; finally she thanked me and covered them with the notebooks, so they would no longer distract us.

We sat down together at a school table. The teacher was an insecure person. She said she had just taken over the class from a sick colleague. She talked her way around the obvious topic for a while. This type of woman made me impatient. It took forever to tease out any useful information. The pralines did not fail to have their effect, however, as the teacher restrained herself from unleashing a curse-filled tirade about my granddaughter. So she could be bought cheaply, too. I had already figured that I’d have to buy her goodwill with a pair of winter boots the next time, but I had overestimated the price of her good grace.

The teacher didn’t think Aminat was bad, just tomboyish (and I had cut her hair only a few days ago!). Yes, sure, Aminat disturbed class a lot; she was able to kick and throw wads of paper at anyone sitting within six feet of her. Yes, she failed to do her homework. Still, in class she often managed to answer correctly even when you thought she wasn’t listening. She also spent many hours sitting on the heater in the hallway as punishment for these disturbances. And she ruined her classmates’ appetites in the cafeteria by comparing the food to excrement.

I clucked my tongue. For some reason this teacher was scared of me. She tapped her fingers on the tabletop and said that Aminat displayed the defiant demeanor of an intelligent but neglected child. And she liked to sing.

“We often have broken families here,” said the teacher.

I interrupted her. Aminat’s mother, my beloved daughter Sulfia, has been sick, I said. During this time I would have expected the school to follow through on its responsibility to educate, but this hope was not fulfilled. I let slip where Kalganow worked. I promised her that Aminat was going to become a completely different person now. And as far as her being fresh—no child had ever dared be fresh with me, I said.

I asked the teacher for her telephone number. She looked more and more lost. Then she ripped a piece of lined paper out of a notebook. I hoped it wasn’t Aminat’s notebook. She wrote her number and her name—Anna Nikolaewna. I stuck the paper into my bag. I should have brought a much smaller box of chocolates.

I kept my word. Aminat became an upstanding young lady. Sulfia was still on sick leave, though she wasn’t really sick—just lazy. I fought that. I made her pick up Aminat from school every day. I wrote out a weekly schedule for Sulfia to follow. At home Aminat was allowed to play for half an hour and then had to start on her homework. I came over in the evening. I ate Sulfia’s pan-fried potatoes, which were always either burnt or raw, and looked over Aminat’s homework assignments. And for every sunflower kernel I found in Aminat’s vicinity, she had to write “I do not want to be a country bumpkin” twenty times in a notebook reserved for that purpose.

Aminat couldn’t recite a single grammar rule but she wrote everything correctly. Good spelling was in her blood: she never made mistakes. But she made up for it with smudges and grease spots. Her handwriting was also terrible.

She didn’t notice any of that and always presented her homework to me proudly—she had quickly gotten accustomed to me checking it. She also got used to me ripping the dirty paper out of her notebook and making her write everything over again. There were a lot of ripped out pages at first, until she figured out what I was expecting. She improved quickly.

Aminat was amazed the first time she brought home a five—the highest grade possible. She had never earned one before. The next day she got another five. After two weeks she got a four—and was disappointed. That afternoon her homework was flawless the first time through. She didn’t want to perform poorly anymore.

Sulfia started going to work again. I stopped visiting every day. Everything was running smoothly, and I wanted to savor the final years of my youth and beauty.

I decided I was ready. I would let men initiate conversations with me on the street. Up to now I had always put on a face that discouraged it. Even the stupidest man could see that I wouldn’t answer him. I was pretty, but not something for him. One day I flipped the switch.

The first man spoke to me on the bus. He stood up to offer me his seat (men constantly offered me their seats when I used public transportation). Earlier I had always just nodded and forgotten about them immediately. This time I looked directly into the eyes of the man who gave me his seat. He had somewhat dilated pupils and a burst vein in his left eye. It was dark in the bus, but maybe he’d been aroused by my gaze. I estimated his age at thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old. He had on a wedding ring that was thin and probably didn’t cost much. His fingernails were cut short, something I welcomed in men. Though in his case they were cut angularly. The first thing I’d teach a man like that would be to use a nail file.

I exited the bus just to test him. Naturally, he followed me out. The bus was full. Rather than elbowing people out of the way, he kept repeating in a loud voice: “Excuse me, please! I need to get out! Excuse me, please!”

The other passengers cursed at him and called him an idiot. I agreed with them in principle. He finally extricated himself just as the bus doors were closing.

I waited until he had gotten out, then began to stroll slowly along Lenin Avenue. Almost immediately he was by my side. We walked a few steps together. He said nothing and didn’t look at me. I lost my patience and began to walk faster. He picked up his pace, caught up with me, and put his hand on my elbow.

“Take your hand off me,” I said gently. He looked at me. His pupils were the size of pins because the sun was shining directly in his eyes.

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said ardently.

I found him charming. With a few subtle hints, I let him know that I wouldn’t consider it beneath me to eat an éclair with him at a café. We sat down and talked about my beauty and my thoughts about Shakespeare. We discovered the first thing we had in common: we both loved springtime. We talked a little about his marriage. I finished my coffee and could feel a sad look lingering on my back as I walked away from him.

He appealed to me. Two days later we saw each other on the bus again. It was something I knew would happen. He beamed when he saw me. This time he couldn’t offer me his seat because he was standing, holding on to a pole with one hand. He smelled of soap and nervous sweat. When the bus braked, I leaned against him as if by accident and felt his heart beating with excitement.

I was excited, too. I was actually rather inexperienced, at least about the logistics of these things. I suggested we go to my place. He didn’t say another word.

Klavdia wasn’t home. I asked the man to wait in my kitchen, locked the door, and dialed Sulfia’s number. I told her to call me in an hour. If I didn’t answer, she should call the police. The man looked harmless enough, but I wanted to be sure. What I liked about Sulfia was that she always did whatever she was told, and didn’t ask any gratuitous questions.

While the man waited in the kitchen, I went into the bedroom. I decided to take off all my clothes. I was really out of practice. I didn’t need any strange, nervous fingers on my hooks and buttons. As I pulled the nylons from my legs, I was enraptured by the form of my calves. I freshened up my makeup, slipped into bed, pulled the covers up to my chin, and called loudly to my new acquaintance.

He fumbled his way down our long dark hallway until he found the right door. Then he entered. I had practiced my seductive smile in the mirror. He took a running start like a long-jumper, threw himself on me, and began to kiss me. You could tell he hadn’t cheated very often. He couldn’t kiss well and his hands felt clammy.

My excitement faded. He peeled off his shirt and simultaneously kicked off his pants. I thought he was funny but made sure not to laugh. He threw himself on me again and caught my hair under his elbow. I let out a cry. He took it for a sign of impatience and headed directly for the target. My hair was still pinned. I was worried he’d scalp me. He finished and rolled off me. I patted my hair back into place. I had just had the second man of my life.

He put an arm around me and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I whispered back.

I asked myself when he was going to leave. Then the phone rang. It was Sulfia. I had to answer. Otherwise she’d call the police according to my instructions. But it hadn’t been more than half an hour. She couldn’t even read a clock correctly. I told her everything was fine, and told my guest that my daughter was on her way over to see me.

He began to collect his things, he straightened his wedding ring, and approached me with his eyes gleaming and his arms held wide.

“When will we see each other again?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. He asked for my phone number. I could hardly say I had no phone since he had just heard me talking in the foyer. I rattled off a random series of numbers, which he wrote on his hand with a pen. Next to it he drew a rose, something I found charming.

Once he had finally left, I took a shower. It was strange to smell of a man. I scrubbed myself. I sprayed myself too generously with perfume I’d bought three months before at a bazaar. Now I smelled like a girl who worked as a cashier. I got back in the shower and washed off the scent.

I was making tea when Klavdia came home. She was breathing heavily. In the last few years she had added to her already excessive weight by gaining at least thirty more pounds. She plopped onto a stool, pulled my plate of cookies to her, and began to stuff them into her mouth one after another. I watched her, happy not to be in her skin.

“If you smack your lips like Klavdia while eating, then one day you will look like Klavdia,” I told Aminat sometimes.

“You’re so strange,” said Klavdia, looking me up and down. I was worried she’d smell the man on me and, just to be sure, went and took a bath.

I was used to male attention. Men had always turned to watch me go by. They held their umbrellas for me and let me slip into line in front of them. That was earlier. What happened now bordered on magic.

I was constantly stopped and asked for my number. Several times men spontaneously handed me bouquets of flowers on the street. I ate pastries at cafés more often than I had ever before in my entire life. I could leave my wallet at home with confidence. Strange men paid for me at cafés, on the bus, and in grocery stores, saying it would be their pleasure.

I couldn’t have them all. That just wouldn’t work. I didn’t want to have them all anyway. But even among those I wanted in theory, I couldn’t have them all. I still had to work, eat, sleep, and call Aminat on the phone to go over homework.

I had a scheme to make it easier to choose. I immediately eliminated men who smelled, who had acne, or who had a cold. Good manners were important, and so were clean fingernails. And I always sent men to the bathroom to wash their hands before they could get in bed with me. After all, they would be touching intimate parts of my body. Talking too much was a negative, as was a sullen look.

Male beauty made me weak. I was an aesthete. A wedding ring was always good. Someone like that wouldn’t be always pestering me. Nice clothes—yes. That was impressive because it was so rare. Same with owning a car—I began to automatically eliminate men who rode the bus. With one exception: those who looked as though they were riding the bus because their car was in the shop.

I must say that I rarely made mistakes. I had a good eye for men with enough sense to be tender and decisive in the right moments, and who were man enough to understand when I no longer wanted to see them. On occasion one would ambush me at a bus stop or in front of my office to ask why I no longer wanted to meet him. Every once in a while one cried, too. Two took sleeping pills but were saved. Flowers often appeared on my doorstep or in my mailbox. Hardly any calls, though: I let everyone know I didn’t appreciate it when my phone was monopolized.

In my spare room, sumptuous bars of chocolate piled up along with shrink-wrapped bottles of perfume, a few books, costly bottles of liquor in gift boxes, cast-iron sculptures, vases, imported nylons, a Russian-Polish dictionary (you never knew what you might need), and a little oil painting of an orange on a wooden table (one of the men had a studio).

Of course, it wasn’t possible to hide all of this from the ever-watchful Klavdia. Too often she was sitting in her dirty bathrobe sipping tea in the kitchen as I was tasting a new acquaintance’s lips for the first time and reaching as I did for the key to my room. That’s why, right from the start, I didn’t try to keep her out of the stuff. I gave her the perfumes I didn’t like or had multiple bottles of. I gave her most of the chocolate (I had to watch my figure), a pair of nylons, some foreign buttons with animated film characters on them, and a cassette by a woman who shared her name with the mother of God.

Klavdia changed, too. She got a perm and polished her nails with the nail polish I gave her from among the ones I’d received. But she began to be nasty to me, and I realized what she needed.

I wasn’t greedy. Klavdia could have my discarded men. The next time I broke it off with one for good, Klavdia took over, looked after him with tea and chocolates from among the gifts of his predecessors, and let him cry in her lap. This took the bite out of her nastiness and allowed us to put up with each other again.