This Is Not Civilization

by Robert Rosenberg

  “It is a difficult time right now,” Bolot said. “For everyone it is a difficult time. I myself would like to marry sometime soon, but it is so expensive to start a family.”

  “I know. I have married twice.”

  “A kalym. One thousand, sometimes two thousand dollars for a woman from Naryn. But even that won’t be enough. You understand me?”

  “Yes, agai.” Anarbek shook his head and clicked his tongue in agreement.

  “And one day she will want to have a house, and children,” Bolot added.

  “I also have a young daughter. Two, in fact.”

  “Is that right? Well, then you and I both must consider the costs of a wedding. Quite expensive, in the capital, for someone like me, with so many friends. So many very close friends, in the government.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you pay rent here?” Bolot asked. His eyes had narrowed into thin dark slits, like roasted sunflower seeds.

  “For my factory?”

  “For your home?”

  “No, of course not. I built it myself, with my own two hands.”

  “How wonderful. In the capital, you know, the rents have increased. Out of control. Many buildings have private owners now.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard.”

  “And we cannot grow our own food, as you do here. We must buy everything—food, clothing, butter—in the bazaar. Ten som for bread! Can you believe it?”

  “It’s hard to believe the costs nowadays,” Anarbek said. “I don’t know how we live.”

  The stilted conversation continued. Every time Anarbek tried to mention the factory, Bolot shifted in his seat, adjusted his tie, and changed the subject, relating the many hardships of city life. Anarbek listened impatiently, waiting for the guillotine to drop. He offered nods of commiseration, but behind the desk his knee quivered. At last Bolot searched his briefcase and drew out a notebook with orange carbon papers inserted beneath each sheet. He cleared his throat, and his voice turned solid, more official.

  “Well, enough personal talk,” he said in Russian. “As you see, I’m compiling the lists of factories to offer for sale this year. You’re familiar with our law, ‘On the Basic Principles of Destatization, Privatization, and Entrepreneurship in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan’?”

  “Yes, brother.”

  “Then you know, of course, that the State Property Fund is the institution responsible for these sales.” Bolot went on to explain that, since independence, the government had closed two hundred state-owned enterprises and privatized the service industries in full, along with 50 percent of construction enterprises, 70 percent of housing, and 25 percent of all agricultural firms. The president had declared he would like to complete the privatization of agricultural firms this year.

  “Will it happen?” Anarbek asked.

  “Well, things sometimes progress more slowly than our leaders would like. You do not see the president coming to your village, inspecting your cheese factory, do you?”

  “No.”

  “No. It is only I. I’m the one who drives through the mountains, far from my home. I’m the one who organizes the auctions. I’m the one going from village to village, making the official lists for Talas.”

  “Yes.”

  “I write it here, you see. On this piece of paper. With this very pencil.”

  “Then you’ll be assessing the value of our factory?”

  “Perhaps . . . but not just yet.” He eyed the open door for a long moment and then returned his gaze to Anarbek. Anarbek rose, closed the door, and secured the bolt.

  Bolot continued. “I can write the factory name here, like this.”

  Slowly Anarbek seated himself, watching. Legs still crossed, Bolot was pretending to write and simultaneously exaggerating the words, “Kyzyl . . . Adyr . . . Kirovka . . . Cheese . . . Collective.” He lowered his head, winked at Anarbek, turned the pencil upside-down, and pretended to erase. “Or I can erase the name.” He smiled and laughed a discomforting guffaw, slapped the pencil on the desk, spun the notebook in his lap, opened his palms, then brushed off his hands. “What factory? You understand me, Tashtanaliev? What factory?”

  Anarbek tried to smile, but his lips stretched only halfway. He thought for a second, weighing his choices. The silence in the room was oppressive. Finally he took the plunge.

  “How much?” he asked.

  Bolot leaned forward and whispered in Kyrgyz, “A small percentage of what you earn, Anarbek. Very small indeed. No one need know. We can get you a few years yet.”

  Jeff did not mean to be cynical about the planned festival. One year into his Peace Corps service, he was making every effort to stay positive. Yet with the novelty of Kyrgyzstan fading and another winter ahead, he found himself sinking deeper and deeper into a morass of cynicism.

  He had first learned of the extravaganza at the bazaar, where he had run into Nazira. She had pointed out a poster pasted on a kiosk, advertising next summer’s Manas celebration. Jeff was skeptically bemused. Nazira tried to explain the importance of the epic. “The legend brings our people together and gives us good examples to live by. You see, Jeff, our president has announced an international celebration and invited the world.” She spread her arms wide, as if to embrace the entire bazaar. “They say even President Clinton is coming! Your father and your friends from America must also attend.”

  Jeff laughed. “We’ll see. When will it start?”

  “We don’t know. May or June. It will last all of next summer. My sister will be one of the stars.”

  “How are they getting the money for this?” he asked. “Shouldn’t the government pay unemployment or pensions first?”

  Nazira blushed. “It is our ancient tradition,” she explained. “Nothing is more important than that. Some of the people have forgotten Manas, and that is very bad.”

  Jeff recognized in Nazira his own foolish idealism. Last summer he had charged into Central Asia thinking he could preach the virtues of democracy and the necessity of basic human rights. Instead he was teaching the simple past tense to unemployed milkmaids for the fourth time. He was culturally exhausted. Life as a volunteer was becoming too much for him: too much vodka, too much attention, too much goodwill, too little progress. As his second summer ended, he did his best to escape the constant feasts. More and more he made up excuses. He avoided handshakes in the bazaars. And still, fearing unreasonable requests from his Kyrgyz friends, he refused to answer the door at night.

  He reached his breaking point in mid-October. The American embassy, in support of Peace Corps volunteers involved in agricultural projects, had mailed Jeff a newsletter and application detailing a promising initiative of tax credits and loans available to dairy farmers. Before classes the next morning Jeff approached Anarbek in the factory office, showed him the information, and explained that it was the perfect opportunity for the doomed collective—even if it meant notifying the government of the oversight concerning salaries. “Look, you simply sign on,” Jeff said. “I promise you. It is the only way there will be a future for your factory.”

  “Future?” Anarbek lifted the application papers between thumb and forefinger, as if they were wet laundry. “What future is there if the salaries stop? Half our village cannot get food now. You want to starve the other half?”

  “I am not trying to starve anyone. Soon the government will discover that they have been mistakenly sending you money. What will you do then? Each year you check the privatization announcements and pray your factory is not listed. And now you’re paying off Ismailov. I am telling you to let the inevitable happen. I am telling you to get some legitimate money in here, rebuild, and work toward a joint venture. This application can ensure success. You just have to come clean, Anarbek. The state is doing this gradually. They will not let you fall into financial trouble. They are trying to find investors abroad. It is not in their interest to see you fail. Listen.” Jeff took back the application and read, “‘Additionally the government is concerned about the flow of dairy
products out of the country. In an effort to regulate the sector, the Kyrgyz Agro organization has been established to help newly privatized corporations handle problems associated with operating in a developing market.’” Jeff waved the papers in the air. “You are perfect for this.”

  Anarbek was shaking his head. “Jeff, you don’t understand. The finance ministers, the governors of the oblasts, are filling their own pockets. They are buying up companies for themselves, and they are the only ones with the money to do it. Regulation? There is no regulation! No stability, no laws. Would you want to chance that? In your country you can afford to take risks. You have money; you have security. If you lose one job, you find another. That is not how it works here. They’ll buy us out and close us—we could never compete with them. The village will starve.”

  “Compete? How will you compete now? There are hardly any cows! You have almost no milk! You make no cheese!”

  “Cheese! Who cares about cheese? We still have our salaries. Soon perhaps we will start over, Jeff. We will start small. Maybe we will try to produce yogurt or kefir to sell in Talas. Simpler operations.”

  “You talk about corruption. It is you, Anarbek! You are the one stealing from the government, corrupting the system. Listen to me. You need to forget about the salaries and begin thinking of the future. All problems have solutions. You just need a change of—how do you say it?” Jeff laid the application papers on Anarbek’s desk, pulled out the dictionary from his backpack, and flipped furiously through the pages. “Mentality,” he said, pointing to the Russian word.

  Anarbek stared at the word and seemed to lapse into thought. With each silent second Jeff felt his hopes multiply. If he could keep the factory from sinking—if he kept the workers in business—the village might not only survive but prosper. The free market might take off, and democracy might eventually take root here. Anarbek studied him; his eyes narrowed. He glanced down at the papers, lifted them from the desk, and held them closer to his face. “No, Jeff. Thank you, but for the last time, no. It is too much risk.” With a resounding tear he ripped the application in two, then into small pieces.

  The signs for the festival hung everywhere by winter’s end. On every store around the oblast, every frozen highway billboard, every icy school gate, and every rusting bus: MANAS 1000 YEARS. Despite the lack of visible preparations, for Nazira these signs meant the festival was a certainty. In February she read a notice in the pochta, declaring the Manas celebration would take place over two weeks in June. The following Saturday a new notice corrected this, claiming the celebration would be held only the final week of June, after school let out.

  “It is almost March already,” Jeff told her on a dinner visit to his host family’s house. It was a particularly frigid evening, and he had hardly touched the borscht or the manti Nazira had made. “In Talas they’re just breaking ground for the first hotel, near the stadium by the river. That is not much time to build a five-star Presidential Hotel.”

  “It is the Kyrgyz way,” Nazira assured him. “Relax, relax, relax, and at the last minute, work, work, work.”

  Jeff had only three months left, and Nazira realized she was running out of time. Soon he would leave—forever, perhaps—and in the larger world of teeming Western cities he would forget her. Her father made things no better with his constant questioning, with his prods, his schemes. “How are things between you and Jeff?” he wanted to know. “Have you brought him bread this week? Have you invited him to dinner? Is there progress?” She had stopped answering; there was too little time to hope.

  In May Jeff spent an end-of-service weekend in the capital and returned to break the news that President Clinton was unable to attend the Manas festival; he had sent his regrets.

  In late June Nazira traveled to Talas to secure festival tickets for her family; the event had now been shortened to three days. In town nothing was happening, although people claimed the celebration had already begun. It seemed the kumbooz, the central site of the festival, lay fifteen kilometers away, in the foothills. Since no hotels had been completed, international dignitaries would now sleep in yurts at the site. Nazira had hoped to impress Jeff—she had hoped the town would be full of parades, street musicians, shashlyk stands, and vendors capitalizing on this historic event. Perhaps it would all start tomorrow.

  She wandered to the Talas airport. Near the dirt runway the town’s schools had assembled six yurts to welcome the invited presidents. Anxious people were pacing. A terrifying Russian babushka guarded a display of mannequins dressed in sequined national costumes. A group of bored schoolboys tortured a falcon chained to a post. Children in felt dresses and conical hats, waving flags of the new nation, had gathered on the road. In one yurt a school director explained that the presidents would all fly in at seven the next morning.

  When Nazira brought this news back to their village, Jeff was incensed.

  “This whole production was concocted just to welcome the dignitaries. Propaganda, that’s all it is. Why didn’t anybody tell those people at the airport that they were waiting one day early?”

  She told him not to worry; the people were used to waiting. The akim of Talas had decreed that festivities should not begin until the visiting presidents arrived from the capital. To encourage promptness, the road to the kumbooz would be closed by seven in the morning. The performers, including Baktigul, had to arrive before then. The family would therefore have to leave the village by four in the morning, so Jeff must stay overnight at their house. And only the chong kishi—big people—like themselves, who had tickets, could attend.

  Lola woke Jeff at three the next morning, and over breakfast he was surprised to see that Anarbek’s entire family had dressed up. While Jeff wore only his ASU Rugby T-shirt and a faded pair of sweatpants, Anarbek had put on a sports jacket and a brand-new stiff white kalpak. Lola wore a long blue printed dress, and more elegant still were Nazira and Baktigul, in matching equestrian costumes: lacy ruffled skirts and tight burgundy vests made of felt and embroidered with antler designs. “You look beautiful,” Jeff told Baktigul, who beamed and blushed. Anarbek placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder and said, “She is our Hollywood star today. She is our Cybill Shepherd, our Yulia Roberts.” Nazira poured the chai, and when breakfast was finished she fetched Jeff’s boots for him. He laced them up next to the door and watched Nazira slip her slim, delicate feet into her high heels.

  They drove two hours in Anarbek’s sputtering Lada, but when they approached the site, officials forced them to park a few kilometers away. As a group they began the hour-and-a-half hike to the kumbooz. Every other family in the area was doing likewise, a procession of zombies trudging through the yellow mist of morning. Jeff asked, “What time is the festival going to start?”

  Anarbek told him the road closed at seven.

  “That is not what I asked,” Jeff whispered to Nazira in English.

  “It is Kyrgyz time,” she whispered back. “You will see.”

  Police were everywhere, twirling their batons as if showing off, and they screamed at the lines of shuffling people for no apparent reason. Yet everyone kept hiking; fifty thousand had to be on the mountainside by seven, before the presidents arrived. Fifty thousand began the slow march to the opposite side of the grounds; they were directed to sit on a far hill to watch the celebration, which would take place in the immense hippodrome below. The organizers had cleared a path through the brush two meters wide, which wound around outhouses, yurts, puddles, and creeks. Fifty thousand had to jump stones to cross a pond, negotiate single warped planks that bridged pools of shit, and clamber up the muddy slopes. Jeff was furious, but Nazira, in high heels, did not complain. Approaching the hill at last, she turned to him and declared, “We must have walked five kilometers. Or eight!”

  In the center of the grounds stood a small stadium with the exclusive seats. Only those with special colored tickets could enter. Security guards tried to let the performers in, but the teeming general crowd swelled at the gates, trying to
force their way in as well. Just as Nazira kissed her sister goodbye and directed her to the performers’ gate, the police twirled their batons, and a mass of people surged back in uncontrollable waves. Baktigul shrieked. A few children fell and were nearly crushed. The celebration, Jeff thought, had begun.

  No time or place had been set to meet up with Baktigul after the performance—this disturbed Jeff, but he shrugged it off as a typical Kyrgyz laissez-faire attitude. With the crowd they came to rest on the far hill, a half-kilometer from where it looked like the show might take place. Once again the waiting began—an hour passed, then two. The people sitting in front of Jeff began to play cards, and their neighbors clicked their tongues in disbelief. Someone chided them: how could anyone think to bring cards to the historic Manas celebration? From his backpack Jeff pulled out Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

  Buses rumbled down the road that separated the general crowd from the exclusive stadium and dropped off the diplomats destined for the coveted VIP seats. The buses obstructed the general audience’s view of the stadium. But the Kyrgyz merely smiled and waved at the tinted windows.

  At ten in the morning the crowd was still waiting in the dirt. Jeff reminded himself not to complain. He eyed Nazira—how gracefully she bided the time, with what assurance and good-natured acceptance she waited: laughing, telling jokes, taking deep breaths of the grassy air.

  Finally, two hours later, the speeches introducing the thousandth anniversary of the Epic of Manas began. A single staticky loudspeaker broadcast the message to the general crowd on the hill. Nobody listened. Jeff could hardly make out, through the forest of kalpaks, over the buses, the distant dot of the speaker. One or two diplomats rattled on, and then a representative from UNESCO offered an incomprehensible dedication. For another hour the crowd sat, waving at the buses.