Dancer from Khiva, The

by Bibish

  The camp was on our collective farm, not very far away from our house. We lived in brigade number five, and the camp was in brigade number one. And I thought we were going a long way away, where it would be cold, so I’d put on all the winter clothes I had. At least I hadn’t put my coat on, although I should have (that’s a joke). By the time we reached the camp, I sweated so much in the heat it felt like I was taking a hot bath. The sweat was streaming off me.

  An old man, the property manager, came out of a room and said to me:

  “Let’s go, I’ll give you a form.”

  We went into the storehouse. He gave me a form and said:

  “There, get changed and put your things over there, separately, then I’ll take them and write your name on them. When you come back at the end of the camp session, you can put your things on again. Hurry up now, the kids will be back from their hike any minute, you’re going to have lunch.”

  I was left on my own in the storehouse. And there was no way I could take my clothes off, because everything I was wearing was soaked with sweat. I struggled for a very long time and the old man must have started to worry why I was taking so long. When he couldn’t wait any longer, he came in to see what I was doing.

  “Why haven’t you put the uniform on?”

  I said:

  “I can’t get my clothes off.”

  He sat me down on the floor and began taking my clothes off and saying angrily:

  “Thinking of going to Siberia, were you? I said, were you going off to Siberia? Why did you put so many clothes on?” And he scolded me, because he was old and he could barely manage to take off all the things I had on. And I really had thought I was going to Siberia, only the camp turned out to be only walking distance away.

  These days I often remember funny stories like that.

  In second or third grade the teacher made me class monitor. I’d always wanted to be first, it was a kind of longing I had. I was in the same class as girls who were my neighbors and friends and lived on the same street as me. And we were friends with girls from the other class too, and we used to play with them after school.

  One day one of the girls got mad at me because I wouldn’t let her copy my homework. When we were on our way home, she turned all the other girls against me. The summer vacation happened to begin just then. When I went out into the street to play with the girls, they ran away and wouldn’t talk to me. It went on for a long time, and I was miserable because I was all alone—no one wanted to play with me. I used to stay home all the time. And that girl was glad no one was friends with me.

  Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore—I was still a child, I wanted to play, to jump and dance and sing. And my mother had two beautiful dresses made of crepe de chine. She always took care of those dresses and wore them only for weddings and birthdays, or when she went into the town, those were the only times she put them on. They were hanging in the cupboard. When my mother was out, I took those dresses, found some scissors, and began cutting them into pieces. The two dresses made quite a lot of pieces, and I threw away all the unnecessary parts—the sleeves and the collars. I took the strips I’d cut and went to the other girls. I gave some to everyone, just as long as they made up with me. Of course when I gave them the beautiful ribbons, we were friends again.

  Later I paid a heavy price for that friendship. My mother discovered that her dresses had disappeared from the cupboard and told my father that the girls were wearing bows made of the same material as her dresses. My father realized what I’d done right away and he gave me a beating that I still remember even now.

  And here is another memory. I was twelve. I was at home, watching television. There was a wedding at the neighbors’ house, and my parents and brothers had gone out to the wedding. I was going to go later. Suddenly I felt something warm running down my leg. I took my trousers off and saw blood. I was so frightened, I thought I was going to die on the spot. I had no idea where the blood had come from. I ran for my mother, who was at the wedding at the neighbors’ house, and I told her quickly:

  “Mama, mama, I’m going to die now!”

  My mother was frightened:

  “Don’t say things like that, or else they’ll come true! What’s happened?” and she took me outside.

  “Mama, I’m bleeding, I’m going to die now, aren’t I?” I asked.

  My mother got all flustered too.

  “Where’s the blood, where are you bleeding?”

  When we got home, she saw the blood on my trousers and realized straightaway what was wrong with me. She scolded me for making such a fuss, took my trousers off, and washed them with household soap and cold water. Then we made “liners” for me out of a rag. It turned out to be my first period, the same as every girl has. But I thought the blood would never stop and I was going to die.

  I was a good student at school. At first I used to sit at the front desk, but later I found out that in the desks at the back you could eat bread cakes during class, so I moved. But the bread I had didn’t taste very good—until we got a cow, my mother used to bake the cakes with just water. Then I used to let the poor students copy from me, and they gave me tasty bread cakes in return.

  And so the years passed, and I grew up a bit. No one at all ever found out about what happened to me in the desert. That accursed story has been preserved only in my memory.

  After I finished eighth grade I went to Khiva with my father. I was going to apply to the women’s pedagogical institute that trained teachers for elementary school. I was a good student, and so the school accepted me without any exams. I went to live for a while with my grandmother, my mother’s mother.

  In our parts all girls are supposed to know how to cook before they get married. When my mother tried to make me cook something or help around the house, I always used to run off to play outside. And when she scolded me and said I ought to know how to do everything else as well, that it would come in useful, I wouldn’t listen to her. I remember how she used to chase me and beat me with the broom, and one day when I rolled out a bread cake crookedly, she grabbed the rolling pin out of my hands and hit me across the fingers with it. But it was all in vain: I didn’t want to do anything around the house. Instead I was always either reading a book or dancing.

  And so no one taught me how to cook. My grandmother had four sons, and so she had four daughters-in-law. In our parts, when a daughter-in-law is in the house, everyone else—the sisters-in-law and the granddaughters—takes it easy. So those four daughters-in-law used to feed me. I remember the poor creatures getting up in the morning, cleaning, sweeping, boiling food, watching the cows (there were eight cows) and the chickens. And looking after their husbands. And bringing up their children.

  One day those cows got me into a real adventure. One of the daughters-in-law milked the cows twice a day. Early in the morning and late in the evening. After the milking she used to bring a bucket full of milk, which she always hung up in the same place, and which she covered with gauze so that the insects wouldn’t get into it.

  But I used to get up early in the morning every day, get the bucket down, take off the gauze, stick my fingers into the milk, and then lick them: overnight the cream set really, really thick. Every day I stole the cream out of the bucket. The poor daughter-in-law said:

  “Listen, the cows’ milk used to be good, but just recently I simply can’t churn the butter, it doesn’t work. Maybe they need different feed? I don’t know what to do.”

  But the other daughters-in-law said:

  “Oh no, the feed’s all right, the grass is fine, we feed them on time, we clean up on time. Maybe the cows are ill?”

  Nobody ever suspected that it was me stealing the very tastiest morsel until one of my uncles discovered me when he came out to the toilet. He gave me a good beating and then said:

  “Don’t do that again, we have mouths as well, and we want to eat too!”

  Those words taught me a lesson for the rest of my life.

  During breakfast, lunch, an
d dinner, my grandmother had the habit of watching your mouth. It used to annoy me. Now when someone’s sitting beside me and eating—guests or anyone else—I never watch their mouths: let them eat as much as they want.

  My hair had grown right down to my knees again. Once again everyone admired my cursed braid, the cause of all my misfortunes! No one else in the college had such a long braid.

  Like the other girls, I had developed breasts. I was pretty well completely grown up.

  I finished the first year with good grades. I was glad that at least now I’d get a scholarship. Of course, that was a wonderful thing for any student. Who would have thought the tragedy that happened in my childhood could be repeated?

  Now I’ll tell you about that as well.

  One day in summer—yes, it was summer again—I was walking home after my exams. A car stopped on the road. Not a big one, like that time, but a small saloon, a white Zhiguli, a Soviet car. There were three men sitting in it this time too. They called out to me:

  “Hey miss, can we give you a lift? Where are you going? Get in, we’ll give you a lift.”

  One of them got out and began trying to persuade me to get into the car. I refused without even turning round and walked on along a path—after all, the car couldn’t drive along that. There were mulberry trees growing there, that was why I went that way. But he ran after me, grabbed me in his arms, easily dragged me back to the car, and pushed me into the backseat. And this happened in broad daylight, quite close to the town. The three men were about twenty-one, twenty-nine, and thirty-three, I think. I didn’t know those first ones. But I know these. They’re probably still alive now.

  The car set off. They took me to some kind of warehouse. They led me out of the car and pushed me in the back to drive me into a room where there was nothing but a bed. It was probably the watchman’s room, I don’t know.

  The first to come in was the young one, who was twenty or twenty-one, and the other two waited outside in the yard. And then he began undressing me. I tried to defend myself, I resisted and cried and pushed him away from me, I told him I was a virgin. And he answered:

  “Good, all right, if you really are a virgin, I’ll marry you, but if you cheat me, then expect no mercy. Let’s find out,” and he threw himself on me.

  He raped me viciously, and of course there was no blood. I couldn’t tell him that when I was eight years old I’d been raped in the desert. And then he began to beat me wherever he could, he kicked me and battered me with his fists. And on his way out, he said:

  “That’s for lying to me, you rotten bitch, there, take that!” and he kicked me again and again in the stomach.

  They hadn’t taken pity on me when I was only a child of eight, they’d buried me alive, so why would they take pity on me this time? They didn’t. They treated me the same way. They stood in line too.

  The second one came in and punched me in the head. He bit me all over my body with his foul teeth, did what he wanted and went out.

  Then the third one appeared. I had no strength left at all. I was almost fainting. When I opened my eyes and saw this third one, I flung myself off the bed on to the floor and crawled toward him on my knees, sobbing and begging him not to touch me. He didn’t come near me. He just came in and stood there. I crawled toward him. The other two had already gone away. And then this last one said to me:

  “You can’t report us, because even before us you weren’t a virgin, and then everyone will find out. So think about it. If you want to live, keep quiet. You understand?”

  I nodded.

  He drove me home and then spread the rumor in the kishlak that I wasn’t a virgin. Of course I was shattered. Just like the first time, I didn’t say a word, I didn’t tell anyone anything, I kept everything inside. It was the second time the name Hadjar—pilgrim—had failed to save me.

  After that day I started thinking—kill them! After all, I knew them! The others, who had maimed me in the desert, I hadn’t known them. And even if I had, what could I have done then, a child of eight! But this time I knew all three men. I remember the youngest wasn’t married, and another worked in the militia.

  First I wanted to burn down one of their houses. I worked out a plan. But nothing came of it, or rather, I wasn’t brave enough. Then I thought it would be good to go to law college and become a prosecutor and try them myself. Day and night I wondered what I ought to do, what I could do. I racked my brains over it all the time. Sometimes I even wanted to die. Simply die and nothing else.

  When I was very little, my grandmother Niyazdjan once told me a legend. Here it is:

  THE LEGEND OF THE CURSE

  One day God ordered all the people to bring him one chicken egg each. The people were surprised—what was it for? But they did as God ordered. And all the eggs piled up into an entire mountain.

  Then God said:

  “And now take one egg each.”

  People did as God said, but they asked:

  “We don’t understand, what does this mean?”

  God answered:

  “If anyone got back the same egg he put in, he will receive a gift: anyone who offends that person or causes him grief will be cursed. And this gift will be passed on from generation to generation.”

  “But how do we know who took his own egg and who took someone else’s, when all eggs look alike?”

  “Yes, but I know,” God told the people.

  I asked my grandmother at the time:

  “And the man our family is descended from, which egg did he take?”

  She said:

  “When the time comes, you’ll understand that for yourself.”

  I remembered this legend when the mother of one of the men who attacked me died suddenly and another was badly hurt when he crashed his car with all his family in it.

  But then, perhaps it was simply a coincidence? I don’t know . . .

  I was a good student at the pedagogical college. I spent time in the library, acted in drama clubs, took part in sporting contests and district competitions . . . And I danced in a folk music ensemble at college as well. By the way, in the kishlaks in our parts they don’t like girls like me. They think dancing is disgraceful. It’s shameful.

  And then one day they showed me on regional television. I was dancing with the ensemble. You know, I’d always danced, ever since I was a child!

  But early in the morning the rumors had started. The whole village had seen me on television. After that concert I couldn’t hold my head up in public anymore, neither could my relatives or my parents. Some people even shouted at me in the street:

  “There goes the dancer. It’s disgraceful, you’ve brought shame on all of us! There were never any clowns in our village before, you’re the first!”

  They spread the rumor that I’d abandoned my studies and become a dancer. But despite everything, I carried on living the way I thought was right. Even though I knew it would turn out badly. One day I even managed to get into a crowd scene at the Kazakhfilm studios. The film was called The Legend of Chokan. I remember they paid us after the film—five Lenin roubles each.

  It was easy to see me in the shot, with my braids. The shot lasted only a few seconds, but even so it was a great success.

  And that was when it began: Every time I came home, there would be another row because of me. My brother started beating me for my misdemeanors. And he said:

  “You’ve brought shame on us—first you dance, and then you appear on television! We’re sick of you and your stupid tricks!”

  I wanted to run away from home and go far, far away, but I had no idea where to go. I was exhausted and depressed all the time, and I began to get pains in my heart. I kept thinking how desperately unlucky I was. At night I couldn’t get to sleep, I suffered from terrible insomnia. I danced, and what came of it? Nothing but pain and suffering.

  The rape, the rumors—it all weighed down on me. More and more often I wanted to die. And then I remembered that my grandmother Niyazdjan once said to me:


  “Never trim your nails in the evening. It’s a bad sign. If you’re going to trim your nails, do it as far away as possible from the tablecloth where we eat our bread. If a nail gets into your stomach by accident, it will be dreadfully painful because the nail will start to grow there inside you.”

  She probably really did believe that.

  So one day I decided to die. I trimmed all my nails and drank the trimmings with some water and then, like a fool, I waited to die. I didn’t.

  Another time I threw myself into the big canal that brings the water from the Amudarya. But that didn’t work either. I deliberately sank to the bottom, I didn’t swim back up, and I swallowed lots of water. But a man saw me and plunged in to save me. He couldn’t keep hold of me because the current was strong. So he grabbed hold of my hair and pulled me out of the water that way. My accursed braid, it wouldn’t even let me die in peace!

  And some time later I took a whole handful of some medicines and poisoned myself. But I still survived.

  After all this stress and suffering I was in the hospital twice, in the neurological department. And I showed the patients there my dances too!

  After that someone started a rumor in the village that I was pregnant. And I fell into depression again, I didn’t have the strength to struggle. I was still too young—only sixteen!

  And then they took me to a graveyard in the Shavat district, where they used to take mentally ill people, children and grown-ups, to pray for help at the grave of Yusuf-Hamadan-pir. People used to come from different districts and regions. They brought meat, rice, and flat cakes of bread, and left them for those who spent the night in the graveyard, in special houses made of clay: separate houses for women and for men.

  In the middle of this graveyard, I remember, was a little hill, and women who couldn’t have children used to lie on the ground and roll down it and ask God to give them children.