The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine (16 page)

Sulfia and Aminat had never flown before, and my only experience had been thirty years prior. We were as excited as children, at least Sulfia and I were. Everything seemed magical, especially the stewardesses and the seat belts.

“Look, look!” Sulfia kept saying.

She pointed out the window, though the view was always the same: clouds, white like cotton candy. Aminat sat silently staring straight ahead. Her cat Parasite had taken the chaos of the packing process as an opportunity to slip out of the apartment, and at the time of our departure had yet to turn up again. Apparently the animal was more intelligent than I gave it credit for.

We landed in Moscow. We had to wait a day and a half for the connecting flight.

I had heard about a new restaurant that had opened on Moscow’s Gorki Street. Apparently people stood in long lines to get into it. We took the Metro there and it was true: when you were at the front of the line you couldn’t even see the back. Of course, we got in line. I took turns with Sulfia—one of us waited while the other rested her legs on a park bench in the sun. After three and a half hours we reached the front. We studied the huge colorful photos of the food on the wall and then read out the names of the things we wanted, names we had never heard before. We ordered thinly sliced, crispy, light potatoes, meat in an unbelievably soft roll, and hot dough pockets filled with apples and berries. Everything was daintily wrapped in paper boxes and placed in a paper bag.

“This is a very good restaurant,” I said to Sulfia.

We stood around a tall table and unpacked our food. Before long, all the little boxes were empty. I put two into my bag—they looked very practical. As we left the restaurant we had to pass a woman who said, “Thank you for your visit, we look forward to seeing you again soon!”

Sulfia was so confused she cowered against the wall. Not even I could come up with a good answer.

Once we were a few meters beyond the door, I turned around and looked at the long line of people waiting to get into this temple of culinary pleasure. I had a feeling we had just tasted the West.

We flew from Moscow to Frankfurt. It was no longer as exciting. Aminat looked quietly out the window. She was tired. We had spent a lot of time walking around Moscow, and she had kept having pain in her stomach.

The air in Frankfurt was warmer than at home. I changed the time on my watch.

“Now we’ll live according to German time,” I said.

Our bags hadn’t been stolen while in transit. At the passport control, my heart beat so wildly that I was afraid it might pop out of my chest. I was worried something would be wrong with our passports or visas.

A young man in a sharp uniform opened my passport. His hands were clean and groomed like a woman’s. He looked at the hologram in the visa, quickly paged through the passport, looked at my photo and at me. I felt my smile freeze. He winked, closed the passport, and handed it back to me. I grabbed it, took Sulfia by the elbow (her passport had been of much less interest to the immigration official), and took Aminat with my free hand. We walked a few more meters and were finally officially in Germany.

I could hardly believe it: we were abroad, all three of us—and not just anyplace abroad, but in Germany. The country that had never conquered us. I was proud of myself. Aminat was only twelve and had already crossed an international border, something I had only read about in books before.

Everything was very clean. Our shoes reflected on the flooring.

We walked with our bags to Dieter.

At first I hadn’t recognized him. Sulfia saw him first and pointed with her finger—a gesture I’d managed to curtail in Aminat.

His face had gotten rounder. His hair was short, and his pink scalp showed through it. His stomach hung over his belt.

“
Guten Tag
!” cried Sulfia, running ahead and wrapping her arms around his neck.

Aminat and I watched as he patted her back and then tried to shake her off.

It didn’t occur to him to help us carry the bags. He walked alongside us and pointed the way with hand motions. Between indicating directions he tried to take Aminat by the hand, which Aminat deftly managed to avoid.

Germany seemed green and not very densely populated. We drove for a long time in the car. We left the fast roads, drove on smaller, narrower roads, drove past hills and forests.

“Here we are,” said Dieter as we stopped in front of a multistory gray building.

Apparently he didn’t own the entire building, just the apartment on the top floor. I looked around as soon as we entered. The first thing I noticed were the angular walls. They looked as if they might fall on your head at any time. I put down the suitcase and went on into the apartment. It was difficult to tell where one room ended and the next began. There were no doors.

I went through an arch and found myself in the kitchen. The whole place was stark and bare. No carpets, not much furniture. It looked as if someone had just moved in and their boxes had yet to be unpacked. I asked myself how someone could live here. But everything was very clean. Dieter showed us a room with a table with a real computer on it, a couch, and, next to that, an air mattress.

We understood we were to sleep here.

“Two people,” said Dieter. “And Aminat—here.”

He pointed with his hand to the living room.

“What’s he saying?” asked Aminat nervously.

Nobody answered her.

“Your first meal in the West should be a hamburger,” said Dieter.

We sat down at the table—white plates, gray utensils, floral paper napkins—and found ourselves looking at a plate of large meatballs, and another with rolls cut in half and slices of tomato and pickle and pieces of lettuce leaf. There was also a bottle of something we’d gotten acquainted with the day before at McDonald’s: ketchup. It looked as if Dieter hadn’t quite finished preparing the meal. He obviously needed a woman.

I watched as Dieter picked up a roll, opened it, laid a meatball down on it, squirted on some ketchup, piled on some of the raw vegetables, and closed the roll again. And to think this person had once had the nerve to turn his nose up at my cooking! He raised this monstrosity to his mouth, which he then opened wide enough to show his gold fillings, and took a bite. The lettuce crunched between his teeth and tomato juice sprayed out onto our faces.

I exchanged looks with Sulfia, then nodded to Aminat. We each picked up a roll. We tried to mimic Dieter, using our hands to pick things up from the plates, stacking the vegetables, squirting the ketchup. Aminat couldn’t open her mouth wide enough to take a bite, so she opened her roll again.

After a length of time that seemed appropriate, we said, “Thanks.” All of us still had food left on our plates—we’d eaten only the rolls because we weren’t too hungry.

Dieter began to clear the plates. I nodded to Sulfia. She jumped up to help him. It irritated Dieter. Sulfia put on the kitchen apron to wash up the utensils. She’d acted too quickly. Dieter tried to take the apron. They bumped into each other. Finally Sulfia sat back down and Dieter brought out a huge platter, the sight of which finally put a smile on Aminat’s face.

On the platter were more sweets than Aminat had seen in her entire life. Little chocolate bars wrapped in colorful paper, squares and circles wrapped in gold foil, little boxes one of which Aminat immediately opened—out fell colorful tablets also made of chocolate—long sticks filled with sweet cream, chocolate-covered nuts and raisins, even apples covered in chocolate, along with cookies, with and without chocolate covering, strange jellied things, hard candies, waffle cones . . .

Aminat behaved terribly. But she must also have been really hungry after that inedible meal. She tore into the sweets with both hands. We sat there like statues while she stuffed her mouth full, crazily, as if she were afraid she might not get to try all of them if she didn’t do it then and there, all at once.

“Slowly, slowly,” I whispered.

But Aminat wasn’t listening to me.

“Does it taste good?” asked Dieter in Russian.

She looked at him with her mouth full and her chin smeared and nodded grudgingly.

I told Dieter that Aminat wouldn’t sleep on the couch in the living room at first, but with me in the little room with the computer. Sulfia would sleep in the living room. I made it clear that he was no longer the man of the house. Deciding where everyone would sleep was my duty.

Aminat collapsed onto the air mattress. She was too tired even to brush her teeth. With Sulfia’s help I undressed her and put the covers over her as Dieter stood in the doorway and watched.

Unlike Aminat, I had trouble falling asleep. And just as I was finally dozing off I heard an awful noise. Aminat was kneeling on the mattress throwing up. Vomit spewed everywhere—so much I could hardly believe it. While I was still trying to figure out whether I was in the middle of a nightmare, Sulfia peeked into the room and reacted like a bolt of lightning. She quickly emptied a suitcase and held it beneath Aminat’s head.

After a moment it was all over. Aminat rolled onto the mattress and fell back to sleep. She moaned softly. Sulfia and I looked at each other and then surveyed the situation. It was a disaster.

“Close the door,” I said, and we got to work.

Of course, we wouldn’t be able to completely hide this unpleasant episode from Dieter. The smell was too bad, even though we had immediately opened the window. We mopped up the vomit with Sulfia’s gray t-shirts because we didn’t know where Dieter stored his rags. Several times I slinked down the hall to the bathroom, once to get a roll of toilet paper to wipe the floor and walls, then back to flush the used paper. Just then Dieter came out of his room.

“Aminat—sick,” I explained in German, flushing the toilet again. Dieter came closer and peered at the swirl of dirty toilet paper scraps in the toilet bowl. The water level remained high and then began to rise.

“Clogged!” cried Dieter in a high, feeble voice.

This German word I did not know, but from his tone it couldn’t have been good.

Luckily I didn’t understand whatever else he said. He gave me and Sulfia a brightly colored plastic bucket and a strange fluffy thing, both of which looked more like toys than cleaning devices, and we scrubbed the carpet again, this time with foamy, scented water. Unfortunately you could still see the stains, and the stubborn smell now had a hint of lemon and vinegar.

Aminat woke up late. She was hungry. I sent her to take a shower and to brush her teeth so at least she would smell good, and I forbade her to eat sweets.

Once Dieter had recovered from this incident, he outlined his plans for us: towns we were to visit, castles, palaces, and a zoo. I brought along a plastic bag with us in the car and pleaded with God to leave the contents of Aminat’s stomach where they belonged. I had a feeling Dieter couldn’t cope with another assault on his property.

I had to carefully consider who was wearing what and when, because we had very few clothes with us. I had packed a red dress, and I put that on along with a pair of golden pumps. Instead of a handbag, I took the plastic bag with strawberries on it. Sulfia wore a pair of formless jeans and a t-shirt. Later I realized that Sulfia had hit the bull’s-eye as far as German women’s style—flat shoes, no makeup, no skirts.

Dieter drove us to Frankfurt, where we strolled along cobblestone streets and the riverbank. On every street corner were stands selling sausages, ice cream, and crepes. I would have liked to try them, but I had no money. I had just two ten mark notes left, which I left in our suitcase because they seemed safer there. We were crazy with hunger.

Finally I said to Dieter that children need to eat frequently or else they won’t grow. He bought a slice of pizza for Aminat and later an ice cream cone. At least there were a few people in Germany who cared whether Aminat was hungry or not.

We went to several towns. The cobblestones in one of them ruined my high heels, though in which town exactly I couldn’t say. I had blisters on my feet. At some point I’d seen enough castles. I wanted to go shopping and told Dieter. I could tell immediately that he didn’t like the idea. I said perhaps we could get a few things for Aminat. I could see the battle raging in his head. No doubt, we wouldn’t get anything for free here.

Later we sat on the couch in his living room and said nothing. Dieter looked at his fingernails. Sulfia shuffled through the postcards he had so generously bought for her. Aminat blinked at the light and yawned. Then I felt her head on my shoulder and the warmth of her breath on my neck. She slept.

I leaned Aminat onto the sofa back. Then I stood up and left the room. When I returned, Dieter was sitting in my place. Aminat’s head rested on his shoulder. I said nothing and settled into a low-slung chair across the room from him. Sulfia looked up from her postcards and smiled.

“Sulfia,” I said, “bring me a glass of water.”

When she was out of earshot, I stood up, leaned over the peacefully breathing Aminat, and whispered in Dieter’s ear, “It would be nice if she could stay here.”

He flinched.

“If her mother married a German, Aminat could stay in Germany,” I said.

Then I sat down again. Sulfia returned with a glass of water. I put it on the low table in front of me. I wasn’t thirsty, and I was suddenly very tired. I got up and went to bed, leaving the three of them there.

The next morning I had a migraine. It was a new plague. I couldn’t even get up. When I finally opened my aching eyes, Aminat was already awake. She was lying on the mattress, staring into space. She was like her mother in this regard. I had to tell her it didn’t work that way. In Germany you couldn’t just lazily sit around. Here you got nothing for free and nothing done for you.

But today I couldn’t say a thing, because not only every spoken word but even every thought resulted in pain in my inflamed brain. I begged God to have someone draw the curtains for me.

Aminat looked at me. I tried not to think about the fact that I had missed the moment when Aminat stopped loving me.

It was as if I were disabled. The only one who paid any attention to my situation was Sulfia. She sat down next to me and put her cool hand on my forehead. Then she brought me a tablet and pulled the curtains closed.

God had taken up the matter for me. I had already prepared everything. In any case, things played out the way I had planned. A little later in the day, Sulfia sat down on the edge of my bed and removed the washcloth she had earlier wet, placed in the freezer, and put on my forehead. By now it had been warmed by my skin. She held it in her hand and wiped my face with it. That annoyed me.

“I have to tell you something,” she said gravely and softly. I could barely hear her.

“Speak louder,” I said. “I can’t understand you.”

She raised her voice, but only for a second. She said that Dieter had offered to keep Aminat here. She could go to school here and he would look after her. And for some reason she thought this was a very generous offer.

Indignantly I pulled myself upright, threw the blanket to the side, and stood up. The pain throbbed in my temples, but I ignored it. I got dressed and knocked on Dieter’s bedroom door.

It was the first time I’d been into his room. He locked it whenever he left us alone in the apartment.

I looked around curiously.

A huge bed stood in the room. In the corner was an ironing board with a shirt on it. On the walls hung photos of slant-eyed children playing in front of the huts of some village. I quickly spotted what I was looking for: Aminat’s angelic photo was sitting on the nightstand. When Dieter laid with his head on his pillow, he could look into Aminat’s eyes.

Dieter protested, but I had already learned to understand only what I wanted to.

“Aminat stays if Sulfia and I stay,” I said in my German. “Otherwise not. Otherwise Aminat immediately home with me. And then with another man to Germany.”

I sat down on his bed and crossed one leg over the other. I had nice legs, but Dieter wasn’t interested in my legs.

“Nice to Sulfia,” I said. “You nice to Sulfia. Only way.”

I leaned back. Dieter looked away disgustedly.

“Aminat, Sulfia, Rosalinda,” I said. “Only together.”

Dieter had decided and as a result became a slightly more pleasant companion. Most likely he was so impressed with his own audacity that nothing mattered to him. For a few days he even forgot his stinginess. He went shopping with Aminat and Sulfia and came home with a stack of white Mickey Mouse t-shirts, jeans, and snow-white tennis shoes that you could only wear here in Germany, where the streets were always freshly cleaned.

Sulfia beamed with joy. She was experiencing happy days. I cannot even imagine how moronic someone would have to be to take Dieter’s meager attention for genuine affection. Anything strange Sulfia wrote off to cultural differences or Dieter’s reserved nature. And she did earn a few ounces of his sympathy because of the fact that she never wanted anything for herself when they went on shopping tours. Absolutely nothing. Even when it was just the two of us.

I let Dieter give me 150 Deutschmarks (I thought any amount he paid for our little girl was too little) and led Sulfia through shoe stores and the perfume sections of department stores. But she had no interest. She didn’t even share my excitement at the striking variety and beauty of all the wares. She smiled when I took pictures of the shelves stacked with yoghurt containers in the supermarket with Dieter’s camera. I wanted to show Klavdia. But Sulfia wouldn’t try anything on. The only thing we bought for her were five pairs of white underpants.

I avoided asking myself what Sulfia thought of it all. Dieter had asked her to marry him. He had kissed her on the cheek. Sulfia thought he was romantic. She liked him and was happy. She never asked herself what a man like Dieter could see in a woman like her.

It was Sulfia who flew home to settle a few affairs. It was clear to me that you couldn’t leave Aminat alone at Dieter’s. Of course he was a coward, but I never trusted anyone.

We returned two of the airplane tickets. I could hardly believe my good fortune. This was exactly what I had wished for—that I wouldn’t use the return tickets. Sulfia flew back alone. I gave her specific instructions: what she should say to whom, what she needed to take care of, what documents she would need to produce. Dieter and Sulfia had already been to City Hall and gotten a list of the papers that were necessary for marriage. Apparently marriage was a civil ceremony in Germany. Fine, that didn’t scare me. Later, when Sulfia returned, I could go home and take care of the remaining concerns.

We didn’t tell Aminat that she wasn’t ever going back to Russia. We just told her she would be staying a bit longer. To go to school, to buy a few more nice things, to learn a bit of German. I didn’t ask her what she thought.

I was very proud of myself. Aminat was in Germany. I was by her side.

And Sulfia was about the marry for the third time.