The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

by Alina Bronsky

  It was awful, but I clenched my teeth. They were very simple people. They spoke nightmarishly bad Russian. I spoke Tartar with them because otherwise they wouldn’t understand. I had nearly forgotten the language because I’d lost my family early and Russian was spoken in the orphanage. I dredged the words out of the depths of my memory and was surprised how well it went.

  With their constant grins and twinkling teeth, Kalganow’s relatives even got Sulfia to smile. First she started to imitate their speech, mumbling tyr-pyr-myr. Then she started to say words and phrases she’d picked up, not all of which were nonsense. I didn’t do anything to encourage her. I was proud of my flawless Russian, especially now that I realized it wasn’t a given.

  Fortunately they had goats. That was the main reason we went out to the country—and only secondarily for the good country air. Though I far preferred the fumes of my city to the smell of cow shit I had to breathe in the country. But I endured for the sake of my child. I had heard that goat’s milk made you strong and healthy, and Sulfia was so scrawny.

  Every morning and every evening Sulfia got a glass of freshly milked goat’s milk. Obviously boiled, because everything out here was full of germs. I boiled it myself using a cast-iron cauldron built into their earthen stove.

  Sulfia made a rueful face whenever she saw the full cup. She didn’t like the taste. I told her it was a vaccination against stupidity. Sulfia sniffed the cup, disgusted, unhappy. She looked at me. My gaze was enough to make other people jump out of a window. So it was child’s play to make Sulfia drink her goat’s milk. The first time she gulped it down. Then she grabbed her stomach. When you drank it so quickly, naturally you got a stomachache. Sulfia’s pathetic expression drove me nuts. Then she suddenly put her hands over her mouth, ran out, and threw up into the raspberry patch outside. She was a brave little girl and would never have made a mess on the floor. After she had regurgitated the goat’s milk, I gave her a second cup and made sure she drank it very slowly. I’m not sure she would have survived to school age without this milk. I sacrificed myself for her betterment.

  I myself didn’t drink any goat’s milk. I did taste it once, out of curiosity, after Sulfia complained about its bitterness—she never complained about things otherwise. I took a sip and instantly dashed out to the raspberry bushes. Yes, this milk was not enjoyable stuff, and I was happy I wasn’t the one who had to drink it.

  Other things to worry about

  During the initial period without my husband, I filled the empty hours with thoughts. I thought a lot. I conducted a thorough evaluation of my life. It was clear that not everything had gone smoothly. But I had always made the best out of every situation. In my late twenties, for instance, I had to get a new passport because my old one had been stolen. For that I needed my birth certificate, which I no longer had. The orphanage where I spent the bulk of my childhood had burned down, and all the records destroyed. The passport-issuing authority had to take my word—so I made myself seven years younger, which seemed about right for me anyway.

  I had always tried to make up for the failures of others, whether through advice, action, or my own good will. That’s a notoriously thankless job.

  Occasionally I interrupted my reflections and walked to the window. Often I saw my husband standing next to the lamppost. Sometimes at night, too. I asked myself what this meant. I didn’t open the window because I didn’t want him to think I was going to ask him to come up. He never did anything; he just stood there looking wretched.

  But I had other things to worry about.

  I’d seen my son-in-law downtown with a young blonde.

  They were sitting at a café, at a little round table in the sun—like something out of a foreign movie. They were eating ice cream from glass bowls. Sulfia never did that kind of thing, sitting in a café eating ice cream. The stranger laughed like a lunatic. My son-in-law smiled and looked at her. Now and then he took her hand, which she would quickly pull away to gesture wildly in the air. She was a very fidgety young woman.

  I hid behind the Lenin monument. With my eagle eyes I could see everything. How he paid the bill and helped her into her coat. A light green one, a daring color. I knew every style that had been in stores during the last five years—could rattle them off by heart—and this coat was not among them. It looked suspiciously like something from America. My son-in-law had obviously not brought slippers back for this woman.

  They walked together to a trolley station. They kissed each other in front of everyone. How shameless. Couldn’t they at least find a building entryway or an empty spot in a park?

  I carefully considered my options.

  One of them I rejected, namely to run up to the slut in green and shove her under the oncoming tram. I would take another path. I had no doubt there were other options. I just had to figure them out—and to judge by what I’d seen, I had very little time to do so.

  Soon I had a good idea. I waited for Sulfia in front of the entrance to her surgical clinic. She worked a lot and had managed to repeat her training and become a proper nurse. When she finally came out of the building—loaded down with five mesh bags stuffed with the groceries she’d spent her lunch break buying at the market, like any normal married woman—she reacted calmly.

  “Mother?” she said. “What’s the matter?”

  She looked at the package I had in my hand and her eyebrows gathered.

  “I’m not even going to try it on. Save yourself the trouble, please.”

  A little while back I had tried to help her dress better. Now that I saw her more frequently, I just couldn’t stand it. Always a pair of pants that sagged in the knees and the behind, and a sweater from her husband’s dresser. It was really no wonder she was in her present predicament. So I had begun to bring her things offered for sale by friends and co-workers who had managed to get hold of them through labyrinthine channels only to find out they didn’t fit. They were nice things, not like the nightmarish clothes made of execrable materials that hung in the shops. I’d already offered Sulfia a cream-colored blouse with big golden buttons. And a dress that went to the knees and accentuated the bust—even if it was lacking, as in her case. All sorts of dresses, blouses, pants. But Sulfia refused to wear any of them. She didn’t so much as try any of them on, and even I was incapable of persuading her.

  This time I had an extraordinary treasure in my hands. A light wool jacket in a subtle pink color. With her raven-black hair, she would have looked like a princess in it. I told her that. She shook her head, stubborn as a mule. Here I was trying to save her marriage, and all she could do was shake her head.

  “You haven’t even seen the jacket yet,” I said.

  “I don’t need a jacket,” said Sulfia. “This one is fine.”

  “But, my daughter, that one is already ten years old.”

  “So? It’s still like new.”

  “Sulfia, listen to your mother.”

  “Mother, we could save ourselves a lot of time if you would stop bringing all this stuff. I have enough things of my own.”

  “I see that.”

  “What I wear needn’t be to your liking,” said Sulfia.

  And what about Sergej, I almost answered in the face of her cheekiness. I suppose it needn’t be to his liking either? Well, don’t worry then, because he doesn’t like it! If he could choose between a woman who looked like a mangy old crow and one like a spring breeze incarnate, I’ll give you three guesses as to which one he would choose!

  “I’m tired, mother,” said Sulfia. “Can we possibly get together another time? I slept so little.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I have to talk to you.”

  Sulfia stayed put. Her bloated mesh bags, filled with potatoes, red beets, and cucumbers, knocked against her legs.

  “Come to my place,” I said. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Another time, mother, yeah? I’m going home.”

  “It’s important,” I said.

  “Then tell me now,” said Sulfia, loo
king over my shoulder at the bus that was just pulling away from the stop.

  “I can’t tell you now. At least not here.”

  “Then leave it for another time.”

  She just didn’t want me to help her. She was keeping me from saving her marriage. She always resisted whatever I did. The good times between us were apparently over, just like the good times between her and Sergej.

  “Mother, I’m so tired I’m about to fall over. Let me go, alright?”

  I took her by the arm and looked directly into her eyes.

  “Sulfia,” I said, “you need to get pregnant as soon as possible.”

  Sulfia began to blink.

  “What?” she said. “What do I need to do? In your opinion?”

  “Get pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “Have a child.”

  “What?”

  “GET PREGNANT, SULFIA! God damn it!”

  “But how?”

  I sighed. It occurred to me that I’d never told her how it worked. At first I had thought she was too young, then I thought there was no need. Then Aminat was born. These days I figured that she wouldn’t need any explanation.

  Sulfia looked at me affectionately.

  “Mother, you’ve had a hard day. Shall I take you home?”

  “But you didn’t want to a minute ago.”

  “I think it would be better if I go with you.”

  We went back and forth like that for a while. She offered to take me home, I turned her down. I just kept telling her that she desperately needed to have a baby. That it was her only path to happiness. Sulfia tried to put her cool hand on my forehead. I insisted on a new baby. I told her that Sergej could certainly produce a handsome son.

  Sulfia’s pale cheeks blushed. But she didn’t contradict me. She took me by the arm and led me along the street. I let her do so—it gave me more of a chance to get my message through to her. I was sure that if I said it enough times, it would sink in. I just had to be persistent, and that I could be.

  Sulfia opened my apartment door, helped me out of my coat, led me into the bedroom, and sat me down on the bed. I realized she thought I was having a nervous breakdown. Maybe she thought it happened to people who got left.

  “When a man has a child, he’s not so quick to run off,” I whispered. “If he’s half decent, then he comes to his senses. Then he’s duty bound. Sergej would not leave his child in a lurch.”

  I looked at Sulfia: she was very pale again.

  She’s an Angel

  Sulfia didn’t have enough time to put my plan into action. One month later Sergej called me. It was early in the morning and I was about to head out to work. He said I needed to come over because Sulfia wasn’t feeling well and he didn’t have time to look after her and Aminat.

  I immediately took a private taxi. Strangely enough, I somehow had more money since Kalganow had left and taken his salary with him. It defied all logic, but it was pleasant.

  Sulfia lay on the couch in the living room, her head hanging down and her hair touching the floor. She had thrown up on the carpet. Now she was snoring loudly. Next to the couch was a vodka bottle. It was on its side, its contents spilled on the floor. I picked it up and stood it upright, but there was nothing left inside.

  I heard a strange snuffle. Aminat had squeezed herself under the little side table, despite the fact that she’d grown quite tall recently. Her long uncombed hair hung in her face. Her black eyes peered at me through the strands of her hair. She sniffled louder now that there was someone to hear it.

  “Come out of from under there,” I said. Aminat crawled out on all fours and stood up. She had on a nightgown I’d patched the elbows on.

  I dried Aminat’s face with my lacy handkerchief.

  “You have no reason to cry,” I said sternly. “Nobody has died. Rosa will take care of everything.”

  Aminat looked up at me. She didn’t believe me.

  “You look bad. I’ll speak further with you only after you clean yourself up. Take a bath, brush your teeth, comb your hair, get dressed!”

  She ran out of the room and I attended to Sulfia.

  My daughter never drank alcohol. No vodka, no beer, no Crimean champagne. None at all, ever, not even on New Year.

  I placed Sulfia’s head on the couch. Brought a moist towel and wiped her face. Got a rag and cleaned the floor. Put up her hair. She groaned and her arms and legs twitched. She smelled like a homeless person. I spread a down coverlet over her.

  Aminat returned—wearing her brown school uniform with a wrinkled skirt, and with her hair braided into two pigtails. The part she had made snaked sloppily across the top of her head. I took the hair bands off her pigtails, combed her hair, and then parted and braided her pigtails again. I gave Aminat her fleece jacket along with her hat, gloves, and knapsack and shoved her toward the door.

  I poured cold water over Sulfia’s head until she came to. Then I made her a strong cup of coffee with lots of sugar and lemon, and scrambled her an egg. I convinced her to get into her bed. I fluffed the pillows. Tears streamed down her face in torrents that soaked through the fresh nightgown I’d put on her.

  She was sick. She had a headache and had to throw up. She was totally unaccustomed to alcohol. She thought it was made to dull emotional pain, not knowing that you should never drink when you were heartbroken—alcohol amplified everything, unhappiness as much as happiness.

  “Why didn’t you get pregnant?” I asked.

  “How?” said Sulfia. I sighed.

  She fell asleep later. I called Sergej at his job.

  “Come home and look at this,” I said.

  “I’ve already seen it,” he answered dryly.

  “You know you’re going to hell for this?” I asked, realizing immediately that it was the wrong approach. Sergej didn’t believe in hell: he was a physicist.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You deserve to die.” This was also below my usual standard for insults.

  He was silent.

  “She’s an angel,” I said.

  “I’d prefer a woman,” said Sergej.

  “Coward,” I said, and hung up.

  He came by again to talk. Fortunately I was there at the time making cream of wheat for Aminat. Sulfia stayed in bed all the time. I heard Sergej unlock the door and heard his steps in the depths of the apartment. I decided not to interfere. Spouses should resolve things between themselves. I stayed in the kitchen, until Aminat tugged me toward the living room by my skirt, saying, “Mama is crazy.”

  It looked as if she were right. Sergej was packing books into his suitcase. Sulfia lay on the floor holding on to his ankles.

  “Get up!” I roared.

  “You see?” Sergej said unhappily to me.

  It was as if Sulfia had lost her mind. Now she was trying to hold on to his sleeve. He kept ripping himself free of her. I held Sulfia back by force.

  “Get out of here,” I said to Sergej while I wrestled with Sulfia. “I’ll expect you tomorrow afternoon at one in front of the Lenin monument. We’ll talk there.”

  “I can’t make it then,” said Sergej.

  “I wasn’t asking. Now get out.”

  He took his suitcase hurriedly to the elevator. Sulfia was hanging in my arms like a puppet; I let her sink to the carpet and went and slammed the door behind Sergej. The more prolonged the breakup, the more tears, I thought to myself. A waste.

  I showed up half an hour late to the Lenin monument. I was still a woman. Sergej was already there and appeared to be alone. He had a pair of American sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his nose and his hair was longer. I hadn’t noticed that yesterday.

  “Buy me a cup of coffee?” I asked.

  We sat at the same café table where I’d seen him with his new girlfriend. The server made us wait—we still had socialism, after all. I said nothing; I wanted Sergej to be the first to talk. But he leaned back and looked . . . I couldn’t actually tell where he was looking because he still had o
n his sunglasses. We sat in silence for five minutes, and then ten.

  “And now?” I said.

  He shrugged his shoulders and folded his hands in his lap.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Aren’t you ashamed?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Very much.”

  “She’s physically ill from grief,” I said. “And it’s all your fault.”

  “But you’re there with her,” said Sergej.

  “I’m going to curse and damn you,” I said.

  He sighed and looked off into the horizon.

  “She’s keeping the apartment.”

  Sergej showed the first sign of emotion.

  “Excuse me? And where am I supposed to live? That place is much too much for two people. We’re going to offer it in a trade for two smaller places. One for me, one for her.”

  “That’s not what you’re going to do. Sulfia is going to stay in the apartment with Aminat. You can move in with your new girl.”

  “She still lives with her parents.”

  “Your problem.”

  Now he looked genuinely distressed. I knew that the scarcity of apartments could really put a damper on romance. What good was passion when behind thin walls the in-laws were watching TV and little nieces and nephews could storm into the room at any moment? Sergej would never again have it as good as he had had it with Sulfia—at least I would try to make sure of that.

  He finally took off his glasses. His eyes were red.

  “I have nothing more to say to you,” I said, standing up.

  “Get in touch if anything comes up,” said Sergej. Without the glasses, his face reminded me of a dog’s snout.

  “Oh, I will,” I promised and walked away in my high heels.

  Getting the apartment was a clear-cut victory, one that had been oddly effortless. If Sergej had balked (and if I’d been in his new girlfriend’s position, I would have made sure in advance that he had arranged an apartment trade), I didn’t have much to fall back on: Sulfia and Sergej were both registered occupants, and it would have been entirely legal for him to divide it or trade it for two smaller places.