Fish- a History of One Migration

by Peter Aleshkovsky

  Spring in Tajikistan is the most beautiful season, and even in Dushanbe you can sense the aroma of distant blooming orchards. Flowers burst into bright colors everywhere, the grass is green and the river runs full and swift. People smile, children squeal with delight, and even fat bureaucrats in boxy suits with their mandatory briefcases eat ice cream and flirt with women, more in keeping with the general joyful excitement than out of their eternal lust.

  That April, Ninka Surkova went completely off the rails. She began to miss classes and then stopped coming to college altogether. The dorm crowd said she was rarely seen there, too. The student president of our class demanded that I find out what was happening: my friend was about to be expelled.

  I went to the dorms twice and waited for Ninka, but she never came. Just when I lost all hope of finding her, I ran into her on the boulevard, purely by accident. She was alone, shambling somewhere, badly in need of a bath and a comb, not drunk, but somehow detached—I’d never seen her like this before. I called her name. She turned and looked as if through me, but she recognized me. The skin of her face was deathly gray, as if spring had not come for her.

  “Verka!”

  “Where have you been?”

  She waved me off and cursed. I took her by the arm and led her home, gave her a bath and a meal, and put her up in my bed. I told Aunt Katya that my friend was in a difficult situation, and we had to spend a night together. Strange as it seemed, Aunt Katya let her stay, only saying,

  “One night—and that’s it.”

  That Ninka was in trouble was obvious, but she didn’t say anything and instead just ate ravenously, like a hungry dog, until beads of sweat came out on her forehead as if she’d stepped into a heated bathhouse. Late that night, when everyone was long asleep, and I—no longer expecting her to talk—was nodding off too, Ninka suddenly shook me awake and began to speak. We sat facing each other on my bed, and she kept talking. From high in the sky, a tiny, oily moon shone down on us, vacant like a junkie’s eye.

  Mamik, with whom she had fallen in love, wagered her in a card game and lost. Ninka was gang-banged after they pumped her full of kuknar, a brew of poppy stems. Men’s chins, rough as cheese graters, had scraped up her back. Their bloated flesh thrust blindly, tore, tormented and bludgeoned her angrily and carelessly. She was tossed about like a wet mattress, without a break, turned over and had again: tight muscles pressed against her cold, balled-up stomach, hair as stiff as chain mail rubbed her breasts raw, teeth tore at her flesh, and fat, bull lips slobbered into her ears and neck, drooled and then licked up the spit with rough tongues, like animals sucking up the last crystals of a salt block. The muck, once it closed over her, had no end. The rocking made her seasick, her mangled ribs hurt, and they kept turning and tossing her around, until someone stern and quick, coarsely barking profanity-laced orders, spilled his manly bliss onto her face and her numb lips caught this humiliating rain. Then they poured another cup of kuknar down her throat, and left her to sleep on a cot, barely covered, and when she woke up everything happened again. The studs partied all night—they were full of strength, of the well-fed, dumb, restless men’s strength that overpowered every cell of her body, plowed over her soul, and raked her memory to tear out, like weeds, everything that was living and warm. They filled her with kuknar again and again, and the pain receded, replaced with a warm stupor, as if her body was filled with wax. Then the wax cooled and set into a crust that was now impossible to break, or tear off, or wash off, ever.

  She told me all this in a dead voice. I had never seen a face like hers: she looked as if she was walking along an endless railroad track, eyes down, counting the ties like the rungs of a ladder to nowhere. Her hand was cold, and I could not warm it. Ninka did not seem to be looking for sympathy anyhow.

  “You know how it is,” she said.

  “I do.”

  “Then why do you put on these virgin airs? I don’t care anymore. I lie and I don’t feel anything. They always want it; we can’t refuse them.”

  At first I was frightened, and I had to will myself to speak, but soon my fear disappeared, and we took turns confessing, first I and then she, except she wasn’t listening to me, and later I realized I wasn’t listening to her either.

  “The girls say it can be different, but I don’t feel anything, I don’t care, I don’t have any pity for myself,” she kept repeating like a broken record, and I couldn’t tell her anything different. I didn’t have the right words. She needed to be chastised and whipped out of her stupor, and instead I pitied her.

  The cold that took her over, like a shard of the Snow Queen’s ice,[3] was lodged deep inside, and I was not able to melt it. She did not reach out to me; she was already dead, and I think she knew it.

  In the morning, ashamed of her tale, Ninka grew restless. It was obvious she couldn’t bear to stay. Somehow, she managed to drink some tea but refused the sandwiches; a complete opposite of the girl who had wolfed down food only a day before. I did not understand this, and thought she was ashamed. I suggested that we wait for Uncle Styopa who could protect her from the gang, but Ninka jumped up from the table and said goodbye. She couldn’t wait to leave.

  “Let’s go to class.”

  “Don’t waste your time on me. I need to go back there.”

  I still had hope, I thought she’d come to her senses, like she did that night. I opened up to her without reservation, scraped up everything that I had turned over in my mind so many times, but she hadn’t heard me. And she left.

  I felt scared and cold, and wanted to lie down, curl up, see no one, and hear nothing. I hugged Sashenka tight against my chest, and she laughed, thinking that I would tickle her as always, but then she fell silent, put her arms around my neck and burst out crying, desperately, as only children can.

  Trying to comfort her, I felt more at peace myself. I took her to daycare and went to college. I spent the day in a fog—the sleepless night caught up with me. I skipped my nursing care class; I knew where I had to go. I set out for the Seagull, determined to speak to Mamikon.

  . 3 .

  There weren’t many people in the café. A group of Russians, sent here to work in construction, was having a good time in the corner. I did not see Ninka or her friends anywhere, but Mamikon’s motorcycle stood by the door like a horse at a hitching post. I took a deep breath, for courage, and asked the waiter for Ninka Surkova.

  “From the medical college?” he gave me a curious look. “Wait here.”

  He left through a door at the back, but soon returned and waved me in.

  “Come in, they are waiting for you.”

  I went through the door. A young man, a kid really, bumped into me in the darkness.

  “Hello, sweetie! Mamikon said to welcome you with open arms,” he leered, undressing me with his eyes, but he did not touch me, and walked ahead. We passed through a sort of pantry and then along a dark corridor, at the end of which he opened an inconspicuous low door.

  “Welcome to our humble abode!”

  I stepped inside. Sheepskins with pillows were strewn on the floor, between low tables. The lair was packed; card games were underway. Everywhere there were bottles, plates with solidified plov leftovers, gnawed-on shashlyks, and wilted greens. A person in a padded coat slept, nose-down in a sheepskin.

  Mamikon was sitting opposite the door; Ninka lay spread out beside him, in the arms of some tattooed character. Two other girls looked no different: they were dirty, sleepy and limp.

  “Since you came all the way here, take a seat,” Mamikon said authoritatively. “Eat with us. Or do you have something to say?”

  The whole pack, cards hidden in their fists, watched me.

  “I want to speak to you alone.”

  “Get out of here, bitch! Where’d you come from, I told you, forget it!” Ninka screamed suddenly.

  The guy who was holding her slapped Ninka across the face. She fell prostrate and lay still.

  “Quiet! The girl came to talk,” Mamikon raised
himself from his pillow and, leaning forward, stood on all fours, like a baboon.

  “You in?” he winked at the guy who showed me in, and he bolted the door with a heavy stick.

  I was trapped.

  “Let Nina go, or I’ll go to the police.”

  I said that very firmly, surprising myself with my strength.

  “Will she go, though?” Mamikon stood up, leaning sideways, and stepped towards me. The pack roared with laughter, but he raised his hand. Instantly, it was quiet. Everyone was looking at us with keen interest; only the sleeping man had not stirred.

  “Why would you want to take her away? She’s fine here. Sit down with us, we don’t hurt pretty girls.”

  I could feel his breath on my skin; he was looking me straight in the eye, and all I saw were his menacing oily irises. I recognized the drug-narrowed pupils and became scared. For some reason, I thought that he would pull out his Browning and prayed that he would have the focus to kill me with a single bullet.

  “Hang on, brothers!”

  I turned my head and recognized him at once: Nar, who had grown up a lot in the past year.

  “Vera, sister, so good to see you!”

  He sauntered up, calmly, pushed away someone’s arm that was already reaching for me, and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “What a reunion, brothers. Swear by my fate, I didn’t expect it.”

  He put himself between me and Mamikon. Mamikon waited.

  Quickly, Nar pulled a knife out of his pocket and opened the blade with a click. He raised the tip to his eye-level and then, with flair, as if showing off to the other kids in our yard, flipped it so that it stuck straight in the mud floor at his feet. Nar bent down and dragged the tip of the knife around me; now I was in the middle of a circle. Done with the ritual, he pressed the blade back in, and pocketed his knife.

  “Blood oath, I’ll not let you touch my sister. Mind you,” he said to me, “my friends are honorable people, they won’t tread on blood here. True ain’t it, bros?”

  “She’s your sister?” Mamikon asked. Everyone waited with bated breath.

  “Named sister, Mamik-jan. I drew the circle, and no man shall cross it. We good?”

  “Good!” agreed Mamikon.

  The gang let out a collective sigh and burst out chatting. The kid that had bolted the door brought me a cup of tea. I declined politely. Nar, pretending at joy overflowing, whistled:

  “Hop-maili , brothers, haven’t seen sister for a year, gotta have ice-cream!”

  The Ninka issue exhausted itself. Surkova was back in the tattooed character’s embrace, and avoided meeting my eye. Mamik came up to me, kissed my hand, and apologized gallantly.

  “We don’t mess with blood. Beg pardon, sister.”

  I squeezed out a semblance of a smile.

  Nar nodded to the kid; he opened the door. We went out into the street.

  “Vera, really, I’m so happy to see you!”

  We hugged again. Nar was big and warm; his almond-shaped eyes shone.

  “Please, I have to make sure you don’t come here anymore. Mamik and I do business, he won’t harm you, but his people are rotten. Forget about your Ninka, she’s on the needle, she won’t leave; they’ve strung her like a shoe-lace.”

  “Nar?”

  “I know what I’m talking about, trust me. Asya talked about you often, she loves you.”

  He walked me home. He had gone to Petersburg with Asya and entered culinary school there, but got depressed.

  “Wicked city, it’s cold and the people are all harried, run around all day long. So I left. I just do this and that, make things happen.”

  I offered to take him home, told him that Uncle Styopa could get him a job, but Nar refused.

  “It’s my fate, Vera.”

  We hugged at the door, neither one of us suspecting what our next meeting would be like.

  Uncle and Aunt were waiting for me. Instantly, I sensed a storm. A golden brooch (a wedding gift) and forty-five rubles that had been on a dressing table by the mirror were missing. Now it became clear why Ninka was so nervous in the morning.

  It was my fault, since I was the one who brought her home. Aunt Katya tarred and feathered me, and went through a thorough list of all my sins—there were more than I had ever imagined. Sashenka rushed to my defense, wailing, but was spanked away and locked up in her room.

  I cut Aunt’s tirade short.

  “I will earn the money and give it back. Thank you for the food and board. I am leaving.”

  It didn’t take me long to pack my things. I moved out despite Uncle Styopa’s appeals; he did not want me to leave. I left all the gifted clothes behind, too proud to take them.

  So it was that I went to live in the dorms, practically naked and without any means of supporting myself. But it took me only a few days to get a job as a night nurse’s assistant in Dushanbe Central Hospital. Never again was I to enjoy the kind of carefree and cozy existence as I had with Uncle Styopa, except maybe in recent years nursing Grandma Lisichanskaya. This is a quiet, steady situation; Mark Grigoriyevich pays me well, and I can afford whatever I want. But life taught me to save. On the other hand, how much had I saved? When Valera and his Zulia visited last month, I gave them twenty-five hundred dollars to buy a car. They need one and I don’t, I’m used to getting around on foot.

  . 4 .

  Between my job and my classes I did not have time to hang out with other students my age. There was only one guy I saw every day: Viktor Bzhania, who worked part-time, like me, in the same hospital. I got hired in the second internal diseases unit, and he went to work in the morgue, where the pay was better, which was important for him since his family couldn’t support him. Vitya spent a lot of time reading specialized literature (he would graduate with high distinction) and was torn between his dreams of becoming a pathologist or a surgeon. A pathologist is privy to the mysteries of death, it’s a purely scientific path; on the other hand, a surgeon is a practitioner who saves lives. Somehow, working in the morgue must have helped Viktor make his choice, and he became a cardiac surgeon; he works in the Bakulev Institute in Moscow now and has defended his doctoral dissertation.

  We’d set off for the hospital as soon as our classes were over; our true motivation was to get there in time for the dinner served to staff in the hospital cafeteria. I spent very little time in the dorms, eating and sleeping at work—the senior nurse, when she learned about my circumstances, offered to put me up there. On our walks from the college, Viktor would make me laugh with stories from his department; traditionally, most assistants at the morgue were complete winos. I was not afraid of corpses: after I witnessed Mukhibá’s passing, I knew that the dead are far less frightening than the living.

  The discipline and hierarchy at work were strict: the senior and managing nurses were like the apostles to the Almighty Unit Chief. I was treated well: everyone knew that I was a student. Gradually, they began to trust me with the simplest tasks: preparing catheters, administering enemas and shaving patients before surgeries, distributing thermometers—I volunteered for everything, I was curious about it all. At first, the nurses sheltered me, and didn’t want me to work with terminal patients, but once they learned that I was friends with a guy in the morgue, they began to give me the dirty work. I attended to hopeless patients, and some people were terrified—why would a young girl want to mess with the dying?—but others, like Chief Doctor Marat Ishakovich Karimov, made me feel special. I did whatever work I had to do and spent my free time on my studies and my somatic patients, but I didn’t tell anyone about my gift. Often, I sat at their bedsides until after midnight; I don’t remember when I slept, I never did learn to sleep more than six hours a day, and I don’t seem to need it. I must admit, I rarely made real contact with those patients; most of the time, I just sat beside them, held and stroked their hands, and often that was enough to relieve the hospital despair. I had no favorites; they were all equally important to me. The pockets of my white coat were always filled
with candy, treats, cookies, or apples: the patients gave me small presents whenever they could, and I put everything on our table in the nurses’ lounge at tea time. That’s probably why Marat Ishakovich nicknamed me Candy, and that’s what everyone began to call me.

  In July and August I arranged for a leave from the hospital, to join the coveted construction crew, eventually going to work at a community center in the mountain village of Djuma-Bazar. I earned good money there. I got the kitchen job and learned to cook. Once the project was over, I went to Panjakent with five hundred rubles in my pocket and ran straight home from the bus station to surprise my mom.

  I opened the door with my key and went in; heavy, stuffy air hit me like a brick wall. Mom was lying on the couch; an unfinished bottle of Chashma stood at her feet. Before, she couldn’t tolerate even the smell of alcohol, and now she was sick. Doctor Davron said she sometimes even came to work drunk.

  Mom had changed: she was tearful, nervous, often hysterical. She screamed that everyone had abandoned her and called herself “cursed by God.” I nursed her, begged her to get treatment, asked her to come live with me in Dushanbe, where I could easily find her a job, but she refused.

  One night I came into her room and lay next to her. Mom was sleeping on her back, with her head tossed back and her mouth open: she was struggling for air, gulping spasmodically with her dry lips and snorting through her larynx. I pressed my body against hers, put a hand on her forehead, and started gently massaging her temples. Intoxication had put her into a stupor, like anesthesia; her muscles contracted reflexively; she must have been having a nightmare, because her face looked like a marble mask carved into a disgusting grimace. I could not sense anything, couldn’t reach her through the walls of the alcohol-induced fog. She was in a different dimension. My helplessness filled me with cold terror. I got up, shuffled back to my own bed and tucked myself in like Mom used to do when I was little. A weary silence filled the apartment; I left the door to Mom’s room ajar, and yet I couldn’t even hear her breathing. Helplessness bore resentment, and my resentment turned into anger. All night I tried to convince myself that my mother was ill and needed medical attention, and was scared because I hadn’t been able to pull her out of her pit.