I had known for a while that something wasn’t right with Aminat. I hadn’t hit upon an explanation like this, however. Who would think of something like that? A scalpel was far preferable to Dieter in my mind, and certainly cleaner.
I liked the doctor who operated on Aminat. He wore jeans and a white smock and had gray hair and a boyish grin. When he came in to see his patient, he joked with everyone.
Aminat did not joke around. She lay there with a look on her face like a soon-to-be mass murderer. I was a little ashamed of her for being so antisocial. Sure, the surroundings were probably a bit much for a young girl. I remembered Aminat’s conception—in a dream—and I asked myself how it all fit together. I asked the gray-haired doctor whether she would still be able to have children.
“As many as she wants,” he said.
“I’m going to throw up,” said Aminat.
Out in the hallway I took the doctor by the sleeve of his smock and told him how Aminat had come into the world. The doctor listened with a furrowed brow. It was the first time I’d ever let a stranger burrow so deeply into our family history.
The doctor said, “Don’t worry, she is healthy.”
Then he added that I should wait for him, he wanted to give me something. I waited in the hall while he left and returned. Bowing formally he handed me a brochure for an organization called the Family Education Center.
I didn’t say anything to Sulfia about Aminat having an operation. Aminat agreed that it would just have unnecessarily alarmed her mother. Sulfia was doing poorly enough without bad news from Germany. Kalganow’s teacher called me and said desperately that I needed to get hold of some medicine for Sulfia. The medicine she usually took had suddenly stopped being produced. We needed to get it for her in Germany. She read me the name of the medicine.
I took the matter seriously. I called them back and Sulfia answered. She sounded feeble and didn’t want to talk about medicine. She said it was true about the medicine but that there was a substitute; she was taking that now and, as a result, everything was fine. That I shouldn’t think twice about it, that I had enough troubles of my own to worry about.
A young woman
I noticed that by German standards, I was a fairly young woman. It was as if I had stopped aging. Of course, I hadn’t forgotten my real age. In Russia I knew I was young but that other women my age no longer were. Here I realized that the women my age really were young, even if they looked worse than me.
Even some women much older than me were still young. I stared at the first real old lady I saw—one with violet-colored hair—after she passed me on her bicycle. I took a picture of the second one. The third time I saw an older woman on a bike, it made me think. Then I bought myself a secondhand bicycle from a newspaper ad.
I sat for the first time ever on a bike. It wasn’t easy. But if these grannies could do it, I wanted to be able to do it as well. At first I tried to ride by myself. The bike fell over. I remembered how children learned to ride a bike. They always had an adult who pushed them.
I made Dieter do it. He didn’t have anything else to do. Evenings we went to an empty supermarket parking lot, I stepped on the pedals, and Dieter steadied my bike. At first it took a lot of effort on his part. I screamed at him when the bike began to tip to one side or the other. We practiced for a few weeks and I could have sworn that Dieter’s skin took on a healthier hue during that time.
I managed pretty quickly to keep my balance. After a few weeks I could ride a couple meters without being braced. I released Dieter from his obligation. He had already begun to intimate that I was too heavy and that he had a weak back. After that I practiced by myself again. I rode in circles in the parking lot and soon also on the sidewalk.
I always rode on the sidewalk regardless of how crowded it was. I just didn’t trust car drivers.
Next, I learned to drive a car.
I already knew a man who ran a driving school, whose wife had in the meantime given birth to the baby and whose face I never glimpsed once she was back home. The woman wore a sour-smelling burp cloth on her shoulder as a constant accessory. Milk apparently didn’t agree with her baby, and the entire house was covered with stains now.
I went to driving school at night. For a working woman like myself, it was very practical that the school was open at night. There were a lot of women in Germany who did not work, and the world revolved around them. In any event, at the school I saw the man whose wife paid me to clean. He was filling out some piece of paper on a table. He looked at me and said, “Ah! What now?”
“I want to learn to drive,” I said.
“Ever tried before?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
He pulled out a registration form and began to fill it out. I moved closer to him and bent down.
“At a steep discount,” I said conspiratorially in his hairy ear.
We looked each other in the eyes. I was sure that he wouldn’t kill me. In Germany you ended up in jail for that kind of thing. He shoved a piece of paper at me to sign and then gave me a couple brochures. I was to begin the classroom portion of the training in two days.
Soon I was sitting on a plastic chair along with ten seventeen-year-olds, all of us listening to the rules governing right of way. The owner of the driving school stood in front of a chalkboard, moved around magnets of various colors, and scrawled arrows around them. I preferred to look over the rules in my book afterward because I wasn’t sure he was explaining them correctly.
I passed the theory test with only a few errors (Aminat had quizzed me beforehand), and then I had my first hour of practice behind the wheel.
My instructor was a little old uncle-type with big ears and sad eyes behind thick glasses. I sat down at the wheel and he sat next to me. He showed me the mirrors and the pedals and the blinkers. I wanted to start driving and turned the key in the ignition. The car jumped. The instructor pulled out the key, put it in his pocket, and started again from the beginning. But I was the customer here and this was Germany.
“I’m here to drive,” I said.
The instructor told me that older women in particular had a lot of problems mastering driving. Even those who were capable of grasping the process intellectually tended to be too fearful at the wheel. They couldn’t drive because they got hung up on feelings. That’s why an older woman had to go over the procedures several times and practice a lot in parking lots before she had sufficiently steeled her nerves to venture into real traffic on even the least busy roads.
“Give me the key, you know-it-all,” I said, pointing to the pocket where he had stashed the key.
Then we had a brief skirmish. He was not the quickest. I got the key, put it in the ignition, stepped on the pedal, and yanked the gearshift. The car must have been in need of repairs, because it moved in a series of jumps before coughing and stalling.
I kept trying, elbowing the instructor as he tried again to take the key. He muttered and cursed in his soft voice.
“Pssst, grandpa,” I said, “why don’t you tell me how this works instead.”
He wiped his forehead with a cloth handkerchief. His knees seemed to be cramping. He had pedals on his side, too, which he had been standing on the whole time—that must have been the reason I couldn’t get anywhere.
He was amazed when I was able to steer the car across the parking lot. I caressed the steering wheel, stepped more confidently on the pedals, and started to develop a feel for the brakes and gas with my own body. I drove. I drove from the parking lot out onto the street. It was loud and lots of cars honked. The instructor beside me kept flinching and grabbing the wheel. I decided to let him if it made him feel better. The important thing was that I was driving.
I learned quickly. I had nerves of steel. Unfortunately I failed the practical portion of the driving test twice. But that was understandable: even in Germany there were mafias, and the driving testers must have wanted money; I had failed to understand. I registered for the test again, paid the requisite fee, a
nd soon had a driver’s license in my hands. Later, however, when I looked at my receipt, I realized that I hadn’t paid anything beyond the standard test fee.
All the money I earned I put in envelopes and stashed them in my stacks of underwear. When I had a chance, I would count it, but for the most part I just kept an accounting ledger in my head. I earned so much because I was so good. I needed only say the word and my employers raised my rate by a couple marks per hour. And I didn’t spend much.
For haircuts I didn’t go to a salon because the prices were horrendous. One of my employers hired a hairdresser to come to her house and cut the entire family’s hair. I was permitted to join them. I had excellent hair, good genes, no gray. My nails I had done the same way at the home of another employer. I couldn’t do much with my fingernails because I needed them for work. But my toenails were perfect. Filed beautifully and polished cherry red. I had really nice feet, narrow, not too big and not too small, very well groomed, perfect to cuddle.
Dieter didn’t want to let me get behind the wheel of his car. But I had come to realize it was old and ugly—I’d seen a lot of others by now. So I started to take it without a word. He was home most of the time, and when I needed the car I would just take the keys out of the drawer and drive off.
I picked up Sulfia from the airport in Dieter’s car. It was the first time I had driven such a long way. Strictly speaking, it was also the first time I’d been on the autobahn by myself. I was bursting with pride and excitement. I took a few wrong turns, but I still managed to get there on time.
I hadn’t missed Sulfia because I’d been so busy. It was nonetheless good that she was here. Sulfia had yearned to see us. I couldn’t go see her because I didn’t want to leave Aminat alone with Dieter, and I couldn’t take her with me because I didn’t want to interrupt the acculturation process, in which she lagged so far behind me. Now Sulfia stood before me with a suitcase that I had gotten for her when she planned to emigrate long ago. It had wheels but she could barely pull it along. Her face was puffy, her skin doughy, and she had deep shadows beneath her eyes. I looked at her and felt nothing but deep hatred for Kalganow.
The third husband
Sulfia planned to stay two weeks. She said any longer was impossible—she couldn’t leave Kalganow and his teacher of Russian and literature in a lurch. She had all the necessary paperwork for the marriage with her, though. She threw her arms around Dieter’s neck, stroked his cheek, and said how much she had missed him. Aminat likewise threw her arms around Sulfia’s neck and hung on her for a while, until I reprimanded her. Even a blind man could have seen how tired Sulfia was. She could barely keep herself upright.
I had cooked a chicken, potatoes, and vegetables and made a salad to go along with the meal. And for dessert I baked a torte. Sulfia didn’t eat much. She smiled the entire time, but I found her smile deplorable.
I wanted Sulfia first to marry and then to recuperate a little. She hadn’t had a vacation in so long. I gave her all my vitamins. Sulfia said thank you to everything. But she was listless. Even her own wedding didn’t interest her much. She lay down often. And then out of nowhere she told me she didn’t want to marry Dieter because she couldn’t be a good wife.
“You’re crazy,” I said. “You are the best wife ever.”
She squinted.
The appointment at City Hall was two days before her return flight.
Beforehand I had rummaged around a little in Sulfia’s suitcase. It was very messily packed. I took everything out, washed it all, ironed it, and folded it. By chance I had also found a cosmetic bag in which Sulfia kept all her medicines. There must have been a pound of one particular concoction, and a few others besides. I wrote down the names on the packages. That way I could take the names to one of my clients, a specialist in internal medicine, and show him what Sulfia was taking.
My employer, quite a good looking man with a goatee that made him look younger than his fifty-five years (I had cleaned up his home office many times and knew his birth date), shook his head and said that putting her on these medicines was negligent. The original drug, the one no longer manufactured in Russia, couldn’t be replaced with these. No wonder Sulfia was so listless.
“I need the correct medicine!” I said. “Is it available in Germany?”
Everything was available in Germany. My client wrote out a prescription for a one-year supply. I took his hand and kissed it. I was so happy that my work put me in touch with people like this.
Then he said it would be a good idea for Sulfia to have a thorough examination. I asked whether he could do it. He asked about her health insurance. I asked whether she might be able to come by his office. We could figure out the payment later; he should have a look at her. The man stroked his goatee. The kiss on the hand was perhaps a little too hasty. I prayed to God for help. It worked: the man gave me his business card and said I should make an appointment at his office.
The year’s supply of medicine cost more than the driving school and plane ticket combined. The pharmacy had to order it specially. I was very happy my job had allowed me to make so much money. I emptied all my envelopes. It didn’t matter. I could make more, because unlike Sulfia, I was healthy.
“You shouldn’t have done it, mother,” said Sulfia. But she immediately started taking the tablets and said they made her feel better.
What she didn’t want to do was to go to the doctor. She said that she didn’t have the time and that her travel insurance would cover only emergencies.
“Look at yourself—you’re a walking emergency,” I said.
But she was as stubborn as ten mules. I just couldn’t convince her to go to the doctor. I should have done it, but it was beyond me.
It was hard enough to get her to marry. For that I used Aminat. She needed to stay in Germany, and everything had its price.
I wanted to go shopping with Sulfia for the wedding. But she said she couldn’t manage it. She lay on the couch breathing heavily. I looked at her and wondered how she had managed back at home to take care of someone bedridden. I had a strong desire to fly to Russia and put a pillow over Kalganow’s face because barring that, I thought, Sulfia would never be at peace.
I went to a secondhand boutique and bought a cream-colored silk dress for Sulfia. It was a valuable, finely tailored piece of clothing. I didn’t buy anything new for myself. I planned to wear a striking red dress that showed off my legs.
The ceremony was set for ten in the morning. We got up at seven. I combed Sulfia’s hair and put it up, put makeup on her sallow skin and a little rouge on her cheeks. She looked a bit more alive that way. I touched up her eyelashes.
“You look pretty, mama,” said Aminat.
Sulfia smiled.
Dieter put on a gray suit that he’d probably inherited from his grandfather. We went by foot to City Hall in the little village where Dieter lived, thus forcing us to live there as well. It was a small wedding. Just the four of us. It took ten minutes.
Afterward we went to an ice cream parlor. Aminat had a huge sundae with strawberries; the rest of us had coffee.
I was proud of myself. My daughter Sulfia, once the ugliest girl on the block, had her third husband.
Two days later I took Sulfia, the wife of a German, to the airport in Dieter’s car. She seemed terribly sad. She said that since she’d been taking the medicine I got her she felt better. I hugged her and kissed her—almost willingly.
“A bachelor for a while again, eh?” I said to Dieter when I came home from the airport. Aminat was lying on her bed with her face pressed to the pillow. I couldn’t help wondering why she loved Sulfia so much. She could get everything she needed from me.
Dieter sat down next to Aminat and put his hand on her head. I watched from the hall. I wanted to make sure he didn’t forget who he had married.
I started working like a dog again. I had a goal. Only a blind person could fail to see how sick Sulfia was. I needed money for her treatment.
I had an address for a
new client. He had a very nice name: John Taylor. I didn’t like Dieter’s name anymore. Just a normal German name. Sometimes I thought perhaps I shouldn’t have rushed it with Sulfia’s marriage.
Tutyrgan tavyk
John Taylor was just ten years older than I was, but already an old man. A widower. His wife had just died. It was a problem for him. His daughter had hired me because he couldn’t do anything anymore. Not that he was physically incapable—he was still strong. But psychologically he just wasn’t able.
He was an English teacher. He was out on medical leave for the time being because he was suffering from depression. I found him interesting because he was English and had a nice name.
He was an educated man and had a lot of books. Shelves from floor to ceiling, and many of the books were old. The spines of the books were dusty. It would have made me depressed, too. I started to dust them immediately. John just said, “Please be careful with the books. I love those.”
He had such a nice accent. It was a little hard to understand. I asked, “Who did you say you love—Rose?”
He looked seriously at me and said: “Not yet.”
I didn’t see much of him while I cleaned. He was in his bedroom most of the time. His daughter said he was afraid of people. Oh, yes, so am I, I thought to myself. People just didn’t notice it in my case. I started going there two days a week, for four hours per day. The house had been neglected. John’s daughter said I was worth my weight in gold. I knew that, of course.
The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine Page 19