The brick station building came in sight, the train braked, and before long the two of them were walking along the platform. The foothills traced dark contours in the distance. The brick buildings of the town, which had sprouted up around the station fifty years ago, expanded out in a brown grid into the steppe, which hummed with the chirring of insects. Drought had left the dirt on the roads caked and crumbly.
At the turn, Rusik shifted his duffle bag onto his left shoulder, pressed Marat’s hand, and, frowning either from the sun or as an expression of his inborn despondency, shook his forelock and headed off across the bridge over the tracks. Underneath, the train was already clanking and chugging, picking up speed as it continued on toward the city.
The oppressive heat had driven everyone inside. Marat arrived home without running into anyone. His parents met him with the customary restraint, but it was clear they were happy to see him.
“How was the train, Marat? Was it dirty? Did they give you towels?” His mother jumped right in.
“What’s going on with that case you’re working on? I heard it’s a big deal,” his father started in from the other side, grunting and wiping his rough face with both hands. “Something about human rights, some woman was murdered? They’re suspecting guys from here. Do they know who was behind it?”
Marat soaped his hands at the basin and gave disjointed answers. His mind was on the dinner table, where there awaited a steaming platter of pea-flour khinkal and bowls of bouillon and sour cream with crushed garlic.
“Wait, first tell me about Khalilbek, Father. What happened? How did they get him?” Marat smiled, settling down on a stool and grabbing a fork. “Rusik said something to me on the train, but I couldn’t make sense of it.”
“Rusik who? The ballet dancer?” His mother broke in, adjusting the hairpins in her unraveling bun.
“What ballet dancer, Mama? Are you making fun of him?”
“No one’s making fun of anyone!” his mother snapped. “That’s what people are saying. He wanders around town like a plucked firebird, a featherless rooster, but thinks he’s better than everyone else. Pride is a grave sin, Marat.”
“Don’t start.” Marat winced.
“Khalilbek also thought that he’d managed to get onto such a high branch that no one could reach him, but the hawks swooped down and grabbed him from there. Even Khalilbek!”
“Enough already with your hawks,” his father broke in. “Better not mention his name where anyone can hear you. There’s enough trouble without that.”
“I’m not afraid, Aselder! You’re the one who was afraid! He killed your son, and now here you are cringing with your tail tucked between your legs like a cowardly wolf facing a hunter.”
“Stop it, hear me?”
“And remember the vouchers? Twenty years ago. Who kept you from selling those vouchers?”
“Stock certificates, you mean.”
“What difference does it make! It was Khalilbek! He insisted that you keep them, he just wouldn’t let up, and you listened to him. Trusted him. Meanwhile, the Magomedovs sold theirs and used the money to buy property in the city. And we’re still living out here in the middle of nowhere like peasants on a collective farm!”
“Give it a rest, you’re driving me crazy! Enough about the stocks.”
“And the casino! Who came up with the idea of opening a gambling den in town, who ruined our kids with lottery scams and slot machines? Khalilbek, that’s who!”
“Mama,” Marat looked up from his bowl. “He was out there wreaking some serious havoc and you’re on and on about slot machines, kindergarten stuff. It’s over, calm down. He’s in prison now.”
“Is it really over, though?” Marat’s father shook his head. “He’s been arrested three times. It’s downright ridiculous. The first time, a search, you name it, everyone all worked up, thinking something big is going to happen, journalists licking their chops. Then that same evening Khalilbek sends out a statement that no one’s laid a hand on him, he’s free, and everything’s just fine. And not a word from the police. Two weeks later, the same story!”
“What the …”
“I swear! It took three tries before they finally locked him up for real, when no one believed it would happen.”
“That’s just fine with me,” his mother jabbered again. “May he rot in there with his damned holster strap. And Adik … such a bright boy!”
“And what’s that story about the house?” Marat asked, with sudden interest.
“Adik’s?” His father raised his eyebrows. “His wife went and sold it to some guy from the police. He went over there himself, talked fancy, waved some documents around.”
“The hussy has no shame, who does she think she is?” His mother flared up again. “I found her on a dairy farm in the back of beyond—one of my distant cousins. I think, a good working girl, just right for Adik, she’ll set him on his feet. Boy, was I wrong! Not only does she take the kids and everything, leaving no trace, but she also goes and sells the house on the sly. Not one thing for us! Every last bit of it, straight into her pocket!”
“What did you expect? Anyway, why count other people’s money?” groaned Marat’s father.
“I have every right. Who raised the boy from childhood, clothed and fed him? Who? That woman? By the time she came, everything was waiting for her on a silver platter. Nowadays all the young people are like that. The moment she gets a husband, it’s bam, fork over the apartment, the house, the car. And her in-laws slaving away right next door.”
“That’s it, she’s off to the races now,” mumbled Marat’s father under his breath. He reached down and picked up a newspaper.
“Adik’s car, the house, that cop bought it all.”
“That ‘cop’ of yours is actually a colonel,” interjected Marat’s father, without looking up.
“Colonel … general, whatever. Who needs someone like that for a neighbor? Every morning I wake up from bad dreams. I think, what if someone slips a bomb under his car, it could blow us up too. I mean, we’re right next door.”
“He’s careful, though. Every morning he comes out and checks under the car,” said Marat’s father from behind his newspaper, in the same tone as before.
“Sure he does! He ought to be spending less time at weddings!” Marat’s mother wasn’t about to give up. “And breaking noses. Torturing people in those cellars of theirs.”
“What are you talking about, Mama?” Marat was startled. He’d been away long enough, had forgotten his mother’s obsessions.
“About how this colonel, or general, whatever he is, came back drunk from his boss’s wedding …”
“From the city,” Marat’s father added.
“Right, from the city, where we, unfortunately, do not live, and instead are baking out here in this cowshed in the scorching sun without so much as an awning over our head. Anyway, he comes back from the wedding and starts in on Mukhtar’s son. You know, the one who’s got ischemia, and who hasn’t painted his fence for two whole years. He ought to be ashamed of himself. What’s his wife thinking? She just looks the other way …”
“Mama …”
“So he starts harassing Mukhtar’s son. Like: ‘I’m from the Sixth Department. Anti-Extremism. And who the hell do you think you are?’ He had his buddies with him, from over there. Now Mukhtar’s son, Alishka, he knows his rights, he backs off immediately and asks him to show his police ID. Not to mention, he’s reeking of cognac, you can smell it all down the street. So the colonel hauls off and slugs him in the nose and breaks it in three places. And the other guys join in, beat him to a pulp: one stomps on his stomach, another straddles his chest. A total nightmare! And they poke the cop’s ID in his face, like, ‘Ha ha, take a good look, feast your eyes.’ But Alishka still managed to kick one of them right into the ditch.”
“Come on, like you saw the whole thing?” Father gave up on the newspaper. “You’re making it up!”
“Mukhtar told me. They maimed his son, and on top of i
t, now they’re filing suit against him for assaulting an officer of the law.”
“Of course you know that poor victim of a son goes to the mosque ‘across the tracks.’ Who knows what they’re teaching them over there. The police don’t just go up to someone randomly like that …”
“Ha ha ha, very funny,” Marat’s mother burst out laughing. “Just don’t try that on your son, he’s a lawyer in Moscow—sees stuff way worse than this every day of the week.”
“Mama, it’s true I have seen a thing or two, but you’re jumping to conclusions. You do it here at home, too, as long as I can remember. You’ll stash away some important thing, or cash, somewhere, and then when you can’t find it, you start to blame everyone. Making up all kinds of scenarios—who filched it, when, and how.”
“Spot on,” his father cackled again.
“Fine, so that’s why you’ve come all this way, just to pick on your mother. Go ahead, both of you, gang up on me.” Marat’s mother stopped clattering the dishes and stood still next to the sink. “Don’t think you’re going to just sit around while you’re here. You know that we’ve reserved the banquet hall for the thirteenth and paid for it.”
“Just what we need right now …”
“It’s exactly what we need. Or you’ll never get married, not until you’re way over the hill. Like old Iskhak, who lost his mind and started going to sleep every night in a grave instead of a bed. And he would read his own yasin for himself.
“You could at least give the boy some peace and quiet. He’s been rattling in the train for two days,” Marat’s father took his side.
“You’re not doing him any favors, Aselder. Where would you be without me?” Then, suddenly catching herself, she dashed over to the stove. “Enough. Marat, have some tea. I brewed it with thyme. I’ll run and get the list. You have some too, Aselder.”
Mother clanged a couple of heavy teaspoons down on the table, which was covered with Japanese oilcloth, brought over two hot glasses of tea, holding them by the brims so as not to burn her fingers, then rushed off, again adjusting the hairpins in her unruly, time-grayed hair as she went.
“Whew,” sighed Marat, smiling.
His father didn’t notice the smile. He was silently tugging at his earlobe, lost in thought.
“What’s on your mind, father?”
“Me?” He snapped out of his reverie and moved over to the table. “I think you need to keep away from this ballet-dancer guy Rusik.”
“What do you mean?”
“His family says that he doesn’t even look at women. He doesn’t go to the gym. Instead of martial arts he does ballroom dancing, quadrilles, that kind of stuff.”
“Tango …”
“Tango-mango. And all winter long he went out to swim in the sea, like some invalid. With flippers, no less.”
“Father, come on, who’ve you been listening to? Rusik is a completely normal guy.”
“Plus he lives near the mosque ‘across the tracks.’”
“He has no connection with religion whatsoever. He could give a rat’s ass about all that.”
“That’s a problem in and of itself. And these mosques too … Did you hear about what happened yesterday?”
“There’s something every day around here.”
“In a nutshell, the religious authorities sent their own imam ‘across the tracks,’ to replace the one they had chosen back when they founded it. Meaning, someone from the city. And this newly appointed imam cruises up in a Lada Priora with a whole entourage, a parade of cars, athletes, machine guns. There was almost another brawl.”
“But what do the religious bureaucrats think they’re doing? They’re just making it worse.”
“Before, most likely, Khalilbek prevented anything serious from happening. He had taken the new mosque under his protection, given money. Now they figure that with Khalilbek in prison, they can just put their own guy in there. But the people rallied around their imam, they adore him. They wouldn’t stand for him to be replaced.”
“Are they all Wahhabis in that mosque? Along with this beloved imam of theirs?”
“How am I supposed to know, Marat? Does anyone know who is who these days? But I think it was a bad move for the muftiate to try to force new imams in there and get rid of the old ones who’d been elected. Not to mention, Khalilbek could still be released.”
“So you’re chicken, are you?” Marat couldn’t resist saying. He drank the last of his tea.
“Le, what, you think that since you’re a big Moscow lawyer you can talk back to your own father?” his father flared up.
“Hold on, I’m sorry, I was just …”
“‘Just’ what? My chairman at the Institute says the same thing. I’m ‘chicken’? You should see the others! No one dares to utter a peep against Khalilbek. Except your fool of a mother. They’re laying low, waiting to see who’s going to come out on top.”
They heard steps, and Marat’s mother came back to the veranda with a pen and a piece of paper covered with handwriting.
“I’m off,” his father declared, and stood up.
“Where to?” asked Marat’s mother loudly.
“To Shakhmirza’s.”
“All right, but don’t eat anything over there. Or Shakhmirza’s wife will think that I’m starving you to death and that you have to run over there for your Dargin chudu.”
“Enough of your jabbering, hear me? Better sit down and go through that list of yours,” Marat’s father barked in his usual way and went out onto the porch to put on his shoes.
“All right, now, look,” began Marat’s mother. She got her glasses out of her housedress pocket and smoothed out the piece of paper with its list of vetted brides. “First on the list: Bariatka’s daughter.”
“You’ve picked a fine one to start with. She can’t put two words together,” protested Marat.
“What, you need her to go up onstage and give speeches? Very funny, Marat. The main thing is for her to have a conscience, and not be someone who only cares about grabbing stuff for herself. Like this one klepto bride that Zarema told me about …”
“Mama …”
“She’s from Zarema’s village. Turns out, first she accepts a proposal from some guy, then after he gives her a pile of gold, she takes off with it to a different village and marries someone else. Now her family can’t show their face in public. They’re trying to raise money to compensate the first bridegroom.”
“Now that’s just ridiculous. Zarema obviously dreamed the whole thing up, she’s certainly capable of it. Who cares about the gold anyway?”
“What do you mean, who cares? I’ve already put away a hundred thousand for your bride. And I’ve scoped out a store in the city. I’ll go there with her, let her choose whatever she wants for that amount. It’ll give me a chance to check out her taste. If she goes for big shiny tchotchkes that you can see from three kilometers away, we’ll beat a quick retreat. Why take up with some gypsy fool?”
“Anyway, with Bariatka’s daughter, it’s obvious at a single glance that she’s a fool.”
“What, you’ve talked with her?”
“I saw her web page. She’s constantly posting selfies. And other pictures—kittens, children reading the Qur’an. And her status: ‘I’m the hottest girl alive from Region Zero Five.’ And she’s a member of ‘Beautiful Dagestani Muslim Babes’ … Cross her off!”
Mother sighed in bewilderment, bit her lip, held her pen briefly above the line with the Muslim Babe, then drew a line through her name.
“Next?” yawned Marat.
“What are you yawning for?” Mother gave him a sideways look. “One conversation with Sabrina, and you’ll never yawn again—that’s how smart she is.”
“Now what? Who’s this Sabrina of yours?”
“Oh, she’s a clever one! Like a professor! From the Shakhov family. Her father’s a military officer, mother’s a cardiologist, her grandfather was a theater director. The girl is made of pure gold. Honors grad, medical school.”
“Do you have a photo?” asked Marat, half-joking, half-serious.
His mother was obviously armed and ready. She reached into her pocket and drew out a photograph. A thin-lipped, thick-browed beauty looked haughtily out at him.
“Where did you get the photo?” Marat was surprised.
“I asked Firuza from the Avenue.”
“And how did Firuza get her hands on it?”
“Firuza’s late husband was Shakhov’s brother. And her son Shakh, your classmate from law school, is Sabrina’s cousin.”
“So she’s Shakh’s cousin. Do they live in the city?”
“Right downtown. We’ll go see them tomorrow. Their uncle died six months ago from a heart attack, so there’s a good reason to stop by. We’ll express our condolences, and the two of you can have a look at each other.”
“All right, then, we’ll give it a try. Who else do you have on the list?”
“Luiza’s niece. Luiza talks so much about her. She was in a dance troupe as a child and now she’s studying economics. I saw her at a wedding—she’s as thin as a reed! And she recognized me and ran over to give me a hug and a kiss, though the last time I saw her she was just a little girl. Now that’s what I call good breeding. We’ll go to the Abdullaevs’ engagement party, you can have a good look at her there.”
“Just give me her name, I’ll do an Internet search and find out whether she’s fish or fowl.”
“I’ll show her to you in the flesh! To hell with that Internet of yours!”
“All right, who else do you have up your sleeve?”
“There’s one from Aselder’s office …”
“From Father’s Institute?”
“Yes, they have a young specialist there, a political activist, works there as a secretary. I didn’t want to put her on the list until I had a chance to see her in person. I went specially to Aselder’s office and had a look: a sharp girl, alert, professional. She’ll go far. Runs a little cosmetics business on the side, right there in the office.”
“Well, Mother … not much to choose from there …”
“What do you mean, ‘not much’? Do you have any idea how many I had to sift through? I looked far and wide. I wanted Muishka’s daughter, but her neighbors didn’t have a single good thing to say about her. Then I thought of the Kurbanovs, but it turns out they’re really tight with Khalilbek. That’s an immediate veto.” She fretted. “All these years you couldn’t come up with even one girl, and now you have the nerve to criticize me! Anyway, here, you know this next one: Zaira.”
Bride and Groom Page 4