The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

by Alina Bronsky

  This empty room served as the storeroom for my tea fungus, which was doing so well that it took up more and more space. At first I had kept it in a five-liter jar, where it looked like a dozen crepes stuck together and dropped into slimy liquid. But it kept growing and the drink it produced kept getting more and more flavorful—at some stage it got too strong. I separated the individual layers and moved each into its own new jar, where they could continue to grow. I lined up the jars on the broad windowsill in Aminat’s old room. I was more comfortable with it there, too, because I worried that Klavdia would secretly put bits of trash into the jars if they were left unattended in the kitchen much longer.

  It wasn’t easy to get hold of so many empty jars. Canning jars were a valuable commodity, and I had to get them from all over. I asked co-workers for them, searched for lids that would fit the jars I did find, and never threw anything away.

  Now we had our big table set up in the middle of the room. I was the best hostess you could possibly imagine. I had spread out a starched white linen tablecloth and decorated the table with a vase of magnificent red roses. I’d been given the roses by the parents of a girl who was on the verge of being kicked out of the school where I worked for skipping class. The parents mistook me for the director of the school because I carried myself like one. When they realized they’d given the bouquet to the wrong person, it was already too late and they were too polite to ask for the roses back.

  The frozen carnations brought by my son-in-law I left in the kitchen; putting them side-by-side with the roses would surely have been embarrassing for him. I had brought out our best silverware. There were glasses for wine and water. I had cooked a shulpa—delicate beef broth with pieces of meat—in a clay pot. Then came the main dish, a rice pilaf with mutton and raisins.

  We sat down at the table. If Aminat hadn’t chattered the whole time there would have been silence throughout the meal, in which case I would have to have made conversation. Actually it would have been my husband’s responsibility, but he was never any good at it. He liked to eat in peace. But Aminat was stuffing her mouth full and speaking for five. She asked questions and answered them herself. She had no manners. She had completely forgotten everything I’d taught her.

  “My child,” I reminded her with deep affection, “we don’t speak with our mouths full.”

  She stopped talking and stared at me, seeming not to understand what I meant. Table manners were apparently not a topic of discussion at Sulfia’s. In my eyes, denying a child a proper upbringing bordered on abuse.

  “Why not?” said Aminat, half-chewed meat visible in her sweet little mouth.

  “It just looks disgusting, my dear. And you are pretty—you shouldn’t look disgusting.”

  Aminat chattered on and interrupted every timid attempt by the adults to converse with each other. Sulfia continued to say nothing, leaving me to do what was necessary.

  “Sweetie, be quiet for a moment. The adults are talking right now.”

  “Who is? Nobody’s saying anything.”

  Aminat turned her head happily from one silent face to the next.

  “That’s because you keep interrupting everyone. Good children don’t do that.”

  She fell silent and pouted. But it didn’t bother me. I knew children needed to be treated like a beet garden. When you eliminated weeds from their character, you got a better harvest.

  “How are things at your job?” I asked my son-in-law as he was noisily slurping his soup.

  “The work doesn’t do itself, that’s for sure,” he said and guffawed. Once again I didn’t know what to think of him. He ate enough for three and kept pointing out to Sulfia that she didn’t serve Tartar dishes as tasty as mine. He told Sulfia that she should make schulpa. Or any kind of soup at all.

  “She was never particularly interested in cooking,” I said.

  “I’ve noticed,” said my son-in-law.

  He laughed. Aminat laughed with him. I gave them both a stern look. Laughing at Sulfia was something only I was permitted to do.

  “She had other interests,” I said. “I encouraged her to do other things . . . for instance . . . ”

  I looked at Sulfia and thought about what talent could justify her household deficiencies. Nothing occurred to me. She had always been miserably lazy, just like her father.

  “So how are things at your job again?” I said, turning back to my son-in-law.

  At that moment, Aminat knocked over her glass of sea buckthorn berry drink and I sent her to stand just outside the door of the room so she’d feel a bit ashamed. After ten minutes I let her back in and gave her dessert. She sat still on her chair now, looked at me out of the corner of her eye, pushed the nut-sized balls of dough of the chak-chak around on her plate, and said not a word more. Handled properly, she could still possibly grow up into a well-bred child.

  Nobody could see what sorrow or joy was in my heart at any given moment. But in Sulfia’s colorless face you could read every thought that flitted through her head.

  I had tried to teach her that nobody should be able to see when you were scared. That nobody should be able to tell when you were uncertain. That you shouldn’t show it when you loved someone. And that you smiled with particular affection at someone you hated. I worked so hard with Sulfia, but it was all for naught. She had no talent, not the slightest under­standing of what I meant. It had repercussions to that day: over dinner Sulfia was for some incomprehensible reason very unhappy, and anyone who wished to could see it.

  My son-in-law liked me. It was understandable. I was a handsome woman. In my late forties I still looked as if I were in my mid-thirties at most. My skin was firm and radiant, and I made myself up every morning before I went anywhere—even if it was just to the kitchen. I wore only red and black. I could pull it off.

  At the first meal with our new extended family, I wore a simple black dress and black nylons. I had nicely shaped legs and made sure not to let them get too thin.

  I always wore high heels. Sulfia never did. Today she had things on her feet that looked like a cross between an indoor slipper and a sneaker. She said my son-in-law had brought them from America. From America! Did people really wear that kind of crap over there, or had these shoes just been really cheap? If my husband had given me shoes like that I wouldn’t have let him into our bed for weeks.

  Admittedly, my husband had never been sent on a professional trip to America. Apparently I succeeded in getting a few important things across to Sulfia, since she had a man who made such trips.

  All in all it was a lovely Sunday.

  We said our goodbyes civilly in the foyer. My son-in-law was charming. He complimented everything: the food, the atmosphere, the effort, and the grace of the hostess. If I hadn’t stopped him he would have complimented my hairdo and legs as well. He was the type of man who noticed those things in a woman. I had a dark feeling that I’d learn more about that.

  Sulfia couldn’t get out of our apartment fast enough. She was probably counting on not coming over again until the day we had to organize a funeral reception for Kalganow here. But she had neglected to include Aminat in her calculations.

  Aminat threw her arms around my neck and bathed my pearl necklace in tears.

  “Grandma, I want you to come with us,” she sobbed.

  I took her hands from around my neck, put her down, and patted her head. She dug her fingers into my dress. Her face contorted into an ugly grimace.

  “MY GRANDMA!!! I DON’T WANT TO BE AWAY FROM YOU!!!”

  Sulfia went pale. My son-in-law didn’t know what to say. My husband acted as if he were somewhere else. I stroked Aminat’s hair.

  “We’ll see each other soon, dear,” I said.

  Sulfia winced. Aminat stop crying immediately. She lifted her little face, puffy from crying, and looked at me.

  “Mama doesn’t want that,” she said.

  “Ach, such nonsense,” said my son-in-law loudly.

  Sulfia remained silent.

  “Y
our mother will surely allow it,” I said firmly. “I’ll pick you up from kindergarten on Wednesday, alright?”

  Aminat turned around and clutched the end of Sulfia’s scarf.

  “Mama, grandma will pick me up Wednesday, alright?”

  “Wednesday works well,” said my son-in-law, winking at me. He mussed Sulfia’s hair as if she were his little sister.

  “Right?” he said, and it sounded menacing.

  Sulfia’s eyes were dark and dull. She nodded.

  A civilized family

  We were a civilized family.

  The first time I picked up Aminat from her new kindergarten, she screamed with joy and jumped around in a circle. I told her to put on her coat. She kept celebrating and dancing. A teacher interrupted: “Anja, you’re disturbing the entire group again.”

  Aminat stuck out her tongue.

  I spoke to her sternly.

  “Get your things on, you Satan.”

  Aminat stopped screaming, sat down on the bench with a dreamy smile, and held her feet out to me. I put her feet into her boots and wrapped the scarf around her skinny neck. It was all so casual and normal. As if the time when I thought my heart would rip apart from the sorrow of not seeing her had never been. I hadn’t forgotten what it was like without her. I hadn’t forgotten one bit.

  I pulled Aminat’s woolen mittens over her fidgeting hands. She looked me straight in the eyes. Sulfia never did that. Sulfia’s gaze had always shifted around, and still did. But Aminat never looked away, regardless of who she was looking at.

  I took her by the hand and led her to the bus stop. Aminat stomped in the puddles and splashed water all around. I hardly reprimanded her, though, because my own heart was celebrating. Winter was fading; the snow was shrinking into itself and turning gray. The air was warming and filling with scents. The trees were still bare, but their branches had a new vitality.

  We boarded the bus that would take us home. Aminat sat at the window, laughed, and pointed at the many things that caught her attention. Spring was at the doorstep, and my heart beat with love.

  We were a civilized family and got along well with one another. I often picked up Aminat from kindergarten in order to help the young couple, who had to work a lot.

  I asked myself what they had done before, without me. Without my advice, without my help. I often took Aminat home to my place because it was cleaner there and I had everything she needed. Sulfia preferred it when Aminat stayed in her apartment; when Sergej also asked me to do that I granted his wish. From then on I looked after Aminat in Sulfia’s apartment, even though it was less practical. We played, I read to her, we painted together, I told her instructive stories from my life and from the lives of others. She listened, but not very attentively. At some point her thoughts would wander and she would begin to hum to herself.

  I considered it my duty to bring up Aminat properly, to teach her right from wrong. I hadn’t studied pedagogy for nothing. Around me she didn’t eat with her mouth open or grab serving bowls meant to be shared. I smacked her face or her knuckles when she did things I had for good reasons forbidden, like picking her nose or scratching herself between the legs. I cursed at her in Tartar, calling her “Satan” and “donkey”—but affectionately. And anyway, she didn’t know what it meant.

  I took on Sulfia’s housekeeping, too. Someone had to do it. I cleaned up in the kitchen, in the foyer, and in the bedroom. I vacuumed up dust, mopped the floors, and scrubbed the toilet. I didn’t want Aminat to grow up in filth, with her stepfather’s intestinal bacteria on the toilet brush and his herpes virus on the cloth handkerchiefs he left lying around everywhere. I gathered them—from between the sheets and pillows in their bed, from under the couch—and washed them in a bowl, hung them to dry, and then ironed them. Just as I did with all the other laundry.

  Sulfia was, as always, ungrateful. All she said was, “Just leave it, mother.”

  She even screamed at me. That was after I straightened out her wardrobe. I sorted and folded the underwear, bras, and leggings, and repaired the holes in them by hand. I did all this despite the fact that I would rather have been watching TV or reading the paper. But she shouted at me so loudly that Aminat came to the door of the room and asked, “Mama, are you crazy?”

  Up to then Sulfia had never shouted. She had just helplessly exclaimed, “Mother, why? Just leave it, mother. Mother, please don’t touch that.”

  I let her scream. Everybody needed to scream once in a while in his or her life. But after a few minutes I also thought enough was enough.

  When I decided she had gone on long enough, I picked up my boot and hit Sulfia in the face with it. She put her hand on her cheek. Aminat jumped on me, pulled at the boot—which I was still holding—and bawled: “If you hurt my mama again, I won’t love you anymore!”

  I was stunned. Love was an enduring theme in our family. We always knew that we loved each other. We told each other often, particularly Aminat and I. I let the boot drop. Aminat did not run off, though. She didn’t even turn away. She stood there belligerently, like a little construction worker, and looked with her black eyes straight into mine.

  “What did you say?”

  “If you hurt mama again, I won’t love you anymore. At all.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I don’t want to have an evil grandmother,” said Aminat, hopping away on one leg.

  Am I an evil woman?

  I always listened closely to everything Aminat said. One of the reasons she seemed so ill mannered was that she could say very perceptive things. I battled her instinct to say whatever occurred to her because her frank observations often hit the bull’s-eye, making people uncomfortable. Aminat had no patience for foolishness and could point out the flaws of others very precisely. Naturally this couldn’t continue, and I worked hard with her on self-control. But I listened closely to what she said.

  On the day Aminat told me she wouldn’t love me anymore, I took my boot without a word and left my daughter’s apartment without even saying goodbye. I took the bus home. Aminat’s voice echoed in my ears for the entire ride: “I don’t want to have an evil grandmother, I don’t want to have an evil grandmother.”

  Was I an evil grandmother? I looked at my reflection in the dirty window of the bus. Is that what an evil grandmother looked like?

  At home I stared at myself closely, this time in the polished full-length mirror.

  I didn’t look anything like a grandmother at all. I looked good. I was pretty and young looking. You could see that I had vitality and was intelligent. I often had to mask my expression to keep other people from reading my thoughts and stealing my ideas.

  I went into the kitchen, where my husband was eating a vegetable casserole, and asked him whether I was an evil woman.

  He choked and began to cough. I waited patiently. He coughed some more. His round eyes were petrified. I waited. He continued to cough and I hit him on the back.

  “So,” I insisted, “am I an evil woman?”

  He speared a piece of eggplant with his fork. I snatched it away from him before he could stuff his mouth again.

  “Am I an evil woman?”

  He looked at the floor. The thick black eyelashes I had once so loved fluttered like a little girl’s. My heart warmed; I thought of the hungry years of my youth. Too bad Sulfia hadn’t inherited those lashes, I thought. But at least Aminat had them.

  “So,” I said, “am I an evil woman?”

  “Why would you think that, sweetie?” stammered my husband. “You’re really, really wonderful. You’re the best. You’re so smart . . . so beautiful . . . and you cook so well!”

  “But none of that has anything to do with whether or not I’m evil,” I insisted. “I could be a terrific cook and still make everyone around me suffer.”

  “No, no, my little squirrel,” said my husband, using a term of endearment from our early years. “Nobody suffers . . . nobody suffers because of you. You’re so good to all of us.”
/>   “Even Sulfia?”

  “Sulfia . . . ,” My husband thought for a moment.

  I waited.

  “Sulfia,” said my husband, “is your only daughter. You always wanted the best for her.”

  “I still do.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Do you think Sulfia knows it, too?”

  “Of course. Though perhaps she didn’t realize it earlier. It’s normal for children not to value their parents. But now she’s grown up, and I think she knows how much you love her.”

  I listened carefully. I was surprised my husband had thought about it so much.

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  My husband turned and poked at the casserole on his plate, then looked over at me with his eyes narrowed, as if afraid I was about to take away his food.

  “Very, very sure,” he said. “You’re the best, the most beautiful . . . and you have such a good heart.”

  If my husband saw me that way, it couldn’t have escaped Aminat. So she couldn’t have meant what she said. She was just being fresh.

  Five days later I came home and found a letter from my husband on the windowsill. In the letter he wrote that he loved another woman and wanted to live with her from now on. He thanked me for our years together and begged me to leave him in peace.

  There was nothing more.

  Apparently there are women who break into tears at such news. Their legs buckle and they sink to the tiled floor of the kitchen, with its checkerboard pattern, and other people must step over them in order to get to the refrigerator. I wasn’t one of those women.

  First I made a cup of tea, following all the rules of the art. I warmed the teapot and then poured boiling water over the tea leaves. If there was one thing I hated, it was poorly made, low-grade tea. I drank my excellent tea in small sips, ate homemade gooseberry jam, and thought things over.