by Bibish
At the new apartment, the alcoholic Yura’s place, we got to know the neighbors again.
They started inviting us, sometimes to wakes, sometimes to birthdays. They were very good people. Though they were mostly elderly. Recently two of them had been in the hospital, I visited them by turns, they were so pleased. And when one of them was discharged from the hospital, we became even closer.
One old woman who lived not far from us was fond of my children and me. She invited me to her place for Christmas. A lot of people were there, and our neighbor Vera was one of them. That evening we got to know each other better. She said:
“Bibish, if you have any problems or difficulties, come to me. I’ll do everything I can to help you!”
A few days went by, the thirteenth of January arrived, and I invited my neighbors to my birthday, and to celebrate the old New Year at the same time. All the neighbors came. And Vera came as well. Straightaway she took my children to her place, so they could play games on the computer, and then came back to us.
We celebrated my birthday, everything was fine. The neighbors said:
“Your landlord made such a mess of this apartment! We thought it was impossible to live here, but Bibish has tidied everything up, there are plants growing here, even lemon trees!”
Yes, in the apartment I really did have twenty pots with different plants and two lemon trees. The landlord once opened the door of our room and said:
“I thought I’d walked into a botanical garden!”
Where I got the plants from is another interesting story.
The Story of Where My Plants Came From
When I was still living with Galya’s neighbor, I used to go to the grocery store with a glass jar for the unbottled milk. The shop assistant always used to scold me:
“Don’t come with a glass jar, what if it breaks! Bring a milk can for the milk.”
I started looking for a can for the milk. One day I saw a woman sitting on the sidewalk and selling old things: plates, spoons, forks. Suddenly I noticed there was a milk can there as well. Straightaway I went up to her and asked:
“Are you selling the milk can?”
“Yes, yes, of course, take it!”
“How much?”
“Only fifteen roubles.”
“Oh, how cheap! But where’s its lid?”
“There isn’t a lid.”
“Then how am I going to carry the milk?”
“Well, when you go for the milk, take the lid off the kettle and put it on the can!”
“But does the lid from a kettle fit a milk can?”
“Of course!”
“If you only knew how hard I’ve looked for this can! They’re always scolding me for my glass jar.”
“Surely there ought to be milk cans in the shops? There must be . . .”
“There are some in the shops, but they’re expensive, and I’d like something a bit cheaper, we’re newcomers, you know—we haven’t got enough money for everything we need . . .”
“Where did you come from?” she asked.
“From Central Asia.”
“I’m from there too!”
I was surprised and I asked:
“How do you mean?”
She answered:
“I’m Russian, but I was born in Uzbekistan. My parents moved to Central Asia earlier. So I was born there, in Uzbekistan. And I married my Russian husband there. Then we moved to Turkmenia and lived there until we retired.”
“But why are you selling your things?”
“We moved here to Russia ten years ago, our daughter was studying in Leningrad. She got married there. Now she wants us to go. We’ve sold our apartment, our daughter has bought us two rooms in Petersburg. She has everything there, so that’s why I’m selling my old junk. Oh, why didn’t we meet sooner? What a pity we’re going away! Wait, let’s go to our place, you can take everything you need! I’ll just give it to you, we’re from the same parts, after all.” Ikram and I went to her apartment. Her husband was packing their things. That was how we got to know Uncle Fedya. He was born in Tambov, but he’d lived all his life in Central Asia. He gave us the twenty plants and the two lemon trees. And a bed as well, three chairs, felt boots, cushions, curtains, and a writing desk.
As they were saying good-bye to us, they said:
“When you water the plants, remember us: ‘Thanks to Zhanna Petrovna and Uncle Fedya, we have a botanical garden now.’” So now the plants shift from apartment to apartment with us. My husband looks after them.
Finally I decided to go to the police to find out if I was entitled to a Russian passport or not. Just how did anyone get a passport here? After all, I had all the documents. People advised me:
“At the police station you have to talk clearly and be brief.”
So I went to the passport office. I waited my turn in a long line and went in to the boss. She asked:
“What did you want? I’m listening.”
“I want to have a passport.”
She was surprised and asked:
“What’s that you say?”
“I want a passport.”
“And is that all you want?” she asked rudely.
I took offense and didn’t say anything. She reached out her hand:
“Give me your documents! Your documents please!”
I gave her everything straightaway. She looked at my papers and started saying something. She talked and talked and at the end I heard:
“And then we’ll give you a passport!”
That was the only phrase I remembered. For a year and a half I went round lots of passport offices, and in every district they explained things to me differently. Perhaps I didn’t understand them very well because I didn’t know the language? In some places they even said: “Come back with an interpreter!” And then Vera finally explained to me that I had to buy a house or an apartment, then I’d have a permanent registration and I could get a Russian passport.
I said I didn’t have enough money to buy a place to live. She advised me:
“Houses are cheaper in country districts. Buy the newspaper From Hands to Hands, there’s absolutely everything in it! You can find something to suit your pocket.”
I bought that newspaper and began phoning people. Sixty kilometers from the town, in a rural area, I found a place to live—for seven hundred American dollars. I went there. I agreed terms with the owner and in a week they registered all my documents. And we paid the money straightaway.
We went to the local passport office, they checked all my documents there and said: “Your passport will be ready in a week, come back in a week!”
We went to pick up my passport. I went into the boss’s office and she told me:
“Go over to that little window, they’ll give you your passport.”
I went to the little window and they told me:
“Check your first name, family name, and patronymic and the dates.”
“Everything’s all right!”
“Sign here!”
I signed. I had a new Russian passport! I opened it and looked: the date of issue was the thirteenth of February. Amazing! Because in my old Turkmenian passport the date of issue was the thirteenth of November. My birthday is the thirteenth of January. My first son was born on the thirteenth of April. My second was born on the thirteenth of May. Really! You couldn’t make it up!
I took my passport and went running to the car. We set off to the rural council to register. When we’d gone about twenty kilometers I shouted:
“Oh, I forgot!”
“What did you forget?”
“I left the children’s birth certificates in the passport office. What do you think, will they give them back to me?”
“Of course, just tell them you forgot them.”
“I was so nervous!”
We went back to the passport office, straight to the boss. She understood everything and said:
“Here are your children’s certificates.”
“I was nervous
because I was so happy: I suffered for a year and a half over that passport! Now my suffering is over, thank you very much, good-bye!”
We went home and celebrated my new passport with the neighbors. They just gasped at the number thirteen. The number thirteen was written everywhere.
Now I am calm.
I thanked Vera for supporting me and helping me. I went to the Sapphire shop and bought some silver earrings—I couldn’t afford gold ones—and gave them to her as a keepsake.
But my calm life didn’t last long. One day there was a ring at the door. I opened it. There was our landlord standing there. He could barely stay on his feet.
I asked:
“What is it, have you come to ask for money again?”
“No, I want to go to the toilet, my stomach’s not feeling good.”
“Yes, of course, I think you should drink less!”
He went through into the room and right there in front of my eyes he dumped in his pants and then fell on the floor. I barely managed to lift him up and lead him into the bathroom. If you only knew how the apartment stank! I couldn’t stand it, I went out onto the balcony. The landlord washed himself a bit and lay down on the divan.
I looked, and the whole room, the kitchen, and the bathroom were covered in filth. What could I do? I had to clean up. We lived there, after all. I found some rubber gloves and got a bucket of water. I tied a headscarf round my face and left just my eyes. I was afraid I’d be sick.
When I’d cleaned it all up, I went over to Yura:
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’re forty years old, not forty days, you shouldn’t be dumping in your pants!”
He didn’t even react at all. Later he came round and left. And soon he went away to his relatives in the country.
A month later there was another ring at the door. I opened it and there were two people standing there: a man and a woman.
“We’re from the Housing Committee, can we come in?”
“Please do.” And I was thinking: What do they want, we pay the rent and all the utility bills on time. “What’s happened?”
“Your landlord Yura has died. You have to vacate the apartment immediately.”
“What do you mean, died? He’s so young.” I was dumb-founded, it was such a surprise.
“He drank a lot, and so he died. We know that you’re his tenants. But now we have to seal up the premises.”
I was completely flabbergasted.
“Wait,” I said, “he has a son, you know. Perhaps we can agree terms with him.”
“That won’t work. The son isn’t registered here, the apartment goes to the state. Look for somewhere to live quickly. In a week we’ll come and seal everything up here.”
“But you can’t do that! It’s winter, after all, what will I do with my children?”
“That’s your problem. Look for an apartment.”
I ran round the neighbors, I put up a notice at the market, I phoned an agency. It was useless. What a terrible life I had! That’s what it means to be born on the thirteenth.
A week later the people from the Housing Committee came again.
“I haven’t found anything yet.”
“That’s no concern of ours.”
“Tell me, do you have children?”
“Yes.”
“Then wait at least one more day,” I begged them.
They agreed. They gave me another day. But what was I hoping for? What guarantee was there that I’d find an apartment in that day? We went to bed in a terrible state. In the morning there was a ring at the door. One of our neighbors was standing there.
“I felt so sorry for you,” she said, “every day I went walking round the entrances in our building, looking for an apartment. You’ve lived here for more than a year, after all. We’ve got used to you, it will be a shame if you leave. And I found an apartment on the fifth floor, the owner lives with her aunt.”
I was so happy I smothered her with kisses and said to myself: God did hear my prayer after all!
And that very day we moved to the other apartment. Just at that time I was expecting visitors from America. It was a good thing they didn’t see me running around looking for a place to live, like some kind of vagrant!
You are probably surprised: Why would she have visitors from America?
I’ll tell you now. And this story about the Americans will be the last in my book: the period of bad luck seems to be over and a good period has begun. But that’s another book already.
Well then, one day I got to know Linda at the neighbors’ place. She’d come from America, from the city of Seattle. She worked in Russia, teaching children and grown-ups English. I didn’t have a word of English and she didn’t have a word of Russian either. But we understood each other somehow. Sometimes an interpreter helped us to talk. She was an extraordinary person too, by the way. Would an ordinary person come from America to the Russian provinces in order to make people’s life there better? As well as being a teacher, Linda’s an ordained priest. She’s a volunteer who helps at-risk children and women. And no one forces her to do it, by the way. That’s just the kind of person she is, she needs to do it.
It turned out that Linda lived in our building. And our building, as you’ve probably guessed, is the simplest possible old five-story block. The entrances are smelly and not always clean.
We started meeting each other. In America, Linda has two sons, two daughters-in-law, and seven grandchildren! Although the second daughter-in-law appeared only recently.
For the first time I felt that someone was interested in my life, that someone wanted to help the children and me. Linda started teaching my children English, for free of course. And she helped us with money too.
When she came to visit us, I treated her to bread cakes and pilaf—our eastern food. One day we invited all the staff of the mission where she works, twenty-five people, to visit us. We sat and ate pilaf, talked, and laughed. I told them about our eastern culture. I showed them a few dances. They liked them a lot. They were surprised that no one here was interested in my art.
It didn’t bother Linda at all that I was poorly dressed or that we lived in an apartment where the wallpaper was tattered and the floor was horrible (what else could it be like in a place that belonged to an alcoholic!). She raised my spirits. Once she said that my family was her family too.
That winter Linda had a birthday. I wondered what could I give her, how could I thank her? I asked the interpreter. She laughed:
“What could you surprise them with? They have everything!” And then she said: “Listen, you dance . . . Record that on a tape and give it to Linda. That will be a really unusual present!”
Right, I thought, good. And so my art was useful after all. I bought some shiny material. Ikram sewed me a costume with his own hands. I began looking for suitable music. I couldn’t find any anywhere. Then I ran to the collective farm market, the young men there are Azerbaijanis. “Help me out,” I said, I told them this and that. The next day they brought five cassettes, so I was able to choose. The children made me head-dresses out of cardboard for the different dances: I was going to do an Uzbek dance, and one from Khorezm, and a Turkish one, and an Iranian one (after all, I have Iranian blood in my veins too), and an Arabian one, and an Afghan one. And I’d also made up a dance dedicated to all mothers so that I could dance it especially for Linda. The Americans brought costume jewelery they rented.
Now I had to find a hall. After all, I didn’t know anyone in the cultural administration. Renting a hall was expensive. I didn’t have any money to spare. I thought and thought and decided to ask the school my children went to. They decided to help me out straightaway. Only they said: “We don’t have any sound equipment, and the hall is in terrible condition, we didn’t manage to do any repairs in the summer.”
But that was no disaster! I had so much enthusiasm. For two days I washed the floors and wiped off the dust. Ikram mended sixty-two chairs with his own hands and fixed the benches. We brough
t in plants in pots from the director’s office, the other offices, and our neighbors to decorate the hall. Everything was ready for my first solo concert, dedicated to Linda.
So that the hall wouldn’t be half-empty, we decided to invite our traders from the market as well. No one at the market believed it. They thought I was making things up. They were all used to looking at me as some kind of vagrant. And it’s true that my appearance didn’t match my invitation. And at the market no one knew that I not only had secondary specialized education, but higher education too. They thought I was some kind of primitive. But by the way, an airship is primitive too, but it flies!
Some of them weren’t shy about it, they said straight out:
“Surely you’re not going to dance! What a joke! When did you become a dancer?”
They whispered behind my back as well:
“What an ignorant Chukcha! She can’t even speak Russian properly!”
And what of it? As it happens, God made the Chukchas too. And if you’d like to know, the most inoffensive people live in “Chukchistan.”
But I have a bad habit: I tell all my joys and sorrows to everyone straightaway. At the market, when they learned I was friends with Americans, they got really angry:
“Would you ever, see how lucky the black faces are!”
They laughed and gossiped. It turns out people are all alike: it’s the same here as in my native kishlak.
Then the day of the concert arrived. About two hundred people gathered. And my friend Theodore Walls was there, an anthropologist from Detroit, he was my patron as well. I danced from the heart. Afterward there was applause and flowers. People came up to me and thanked me. And Linda sat there and cried. At the end of the dance dedicated to all mothers, I took off my headdress and put it on her head. Everything went very well.
I express my thoughts without any words—in the dances that I make up. Without speaking, but clearly! The dances turn out most unusual when I’m suffering or, just the opposite, when I’m happy about something.
After that concert people in the town began to know me a little. They began inviting me to dance for money at parties, in houses of culture. But even so it is very hard to break through and realize my potential. I’ll never be another Tamara Hanum. The times aren’t right.