Days in the Caucasus

by Banine

  A bird sang. In front of me was the crossing keeper’s white house, surrounded by a little garden. Shutters opened beside red geraniums on a windowsill; a woman appeared, young, blonde and glowing. The woman opening the shutters in the fresh, pink calm of morning—a morning that was as radiant as her beauty; the red geraniums, the wood touched by the first rays of sunshine, the magical silence: all this beauty, which in a few moments would melt into the past, is still within me. I have only to close my eyes and I can see the colours and objects again; I can hear the silence, punctuated only by the refrain of a bird. I can see it all as it was, at one precise moment, centuries ago, and though all that harmony has vanished, it remains as alive as ever.

  The dark, dank house that Grandfather Musa* had allocated to us was covered in ivy outside and inhabited inside by centipedes, cockroaches, spiders and other monsters. What we lost in comfort as a result, we gained in animation and movement. It was a bizarre surprise to find a toothpaste-scented centipede in your tooth glass, to discover a spider resting in your bed or a cockroach settled in your shoe; it was open season on insects, the richness of the haul depending on the luck of the day; there was the satisfaction, too, of never feeling completely alone or abandoned. As I had the bad luck to catch mumps as soon as we arrived in Kislovodsk, I came to appreciate the presence of the insects. I spent a whole month in bed, where watching their lives was my only diversion.

  I had some sad times in that gloomy room where half the window was covered in ivy. Outside, in a world inaccessible to me, the sun was shining for other people, the birds were singing nonstop, hundreds of people were out promenading. My rosebud dress hung limply in a wardrobe that smelt of camphor. Beneath the dress, where legs and feet should have been, my black patent leather shoes shone in the emptiness, for nothing and no one. The world was getting on very well without me: people carried on being happy or sad, loving or hating one another, and I even learnt from Fräulein Anna that the Russians had gone to war against the Germans and our brother Turks. It left me unmoved, though: it was my mumps that had acquired historic importance for me.

  Widening the circle step by step, I could at last get out of bed, out of my room and then out of the house. When I was at the stage of leaving the garden, I went to pay my respects to my grandfather, who had arrived in Kislovodsk in the meantime. I found him sitting in an armchair beneath a large plane tree.

  Grandfather wasn’t handsome, and he wasn’t at all affectionate towards his granddaughters either. So I didn’t love him very much, or at least felt no affection for him. This courtesy call that I had to pay, now I had recovered from the mumps, really irked me, but there was no getting out of it: it was better to get it over with quickly, like a purge.

  I strode towards the plane tree where Grandfather Musa was sitting and planted a kiss, lighter than a dragonfly, on his rough cheek, above his fine, black-dyed beard. Then I sat down nearby on a bench and studied the sky and the clouds, which I rightly found more attractive than my grandfather. He said nothing, but we both had the reassuring sense of doing our duty: Grandfather by putting up with my presence and me by sitting close to the person to whom I owed the greatest possible respect. When I felt that a suitable period of time had elapsed, I got up. Then Grandfather, aware too of his duty, started to rummage in his pockets. This took a long time: he thought the coins he found too valuable. At last he made some choking sounds that seemed to indicate satisfaction and furtively slipped into my hand a ten-kopek coin. It was the custom in our family of realists, who knew what life was about, to make gifts of money. I had nothing against this practice, quite the reverse, but I thought it humiliating to accept ten kopeks. I had to take them, though, and even feign delight.

  At that moment, however, fortune was smiling on me: my grandfather’s second wife came up to us and kissed me. Spying the ten-kopek coin in my hand, she cried in indignation: ‘Agha Musa’ (she always used the respectful term Agha when addressing her husband), ‘give her more than that. What do you expect her to do with ten kopeks?’ A pained expression on his face, he started rummaging in his pockets again. He found a rouble, and handed it to me reluctantly, then turned away, disgusted with me and his generosity.

  My grandfather was one of the richest men in Baku, but also the most parsimonious. Though his miserliness is still notorious in the annals of our city, it was shot through with a host of bewildering contradictions. Suffice it to mention just one to give some idea of the complexity of his miserliness. On days when people were out in the streets of Baku selling artificial daisies, a symbol of some charitable society or other, Grandfather would not go out, lest he fall victim to one of these vigilant souls who would promptly pin a flower on his clothes and invitingly rattle a small collecting tin. But when he died, we were amazed to learn that he had given out enormous sums of money, sometimes to people he didn’t know and always without publicity. He also set up numerous bursaries for poor boys.

  He was kidnapped twice in his life and both times emerged unscathed after paying huge ransoms. I am proud to say that Baku was many years ahead of America in all that concerned kidnapping, only our gangsters were called qochus. Like their American counterparts, they knew how to operate quickly, effectively, discreetly and with the help of the Russian police, who took care not to impede an activity that was so profitable for everyone—except the victims, that is. The qochus, moreover, enjoyed not only impunity but also a well-deserved reputation for generosity and daring. Unfortunately, very little was known about the stays imposed on their clientele: the victims remained silent on the subject, it was assumed by order of the qochus. One could deduce, though, that they had been well treated and, especially, well fed; when they returned from their enforced sojourns they would almost always look in the best of health and have put on weight. It was only right that they should pay for their board and lodging!

  Another act of munificence by this real-life version of Molière’s Harpagon was the erection of an opulent edifice built in a rather bizarre architectural style. Dedicated to the memory of his son Ismayil, who died of consumption, the building was known as the Ismayilliye. It was later the seat of the ephemeral parliament of the ephemeral independent Republic of Azerbaijan.

  I will mention in passing that the name Azerbaijan in Persian means ‘Land of Fire’, from the fires sometimes ignited spontaneously by the sun shining on oil slicks on the ground.

  * Musa is the Arabic form of the name Moses.

  9

  Kislovodsk was a pretty town surrounded by lush countryside. I was enchanted by it all—the verdant grass, the woods dark with ivy and dense foliage, the humidity beneath the trees and even in the houses, which penetrated my whole body, accustomed as I was to the dry climate of Baku. And beyond were the snow-covered peaks of the Caucasus Mountains; in good weather Mount Elbrus could be seen above them all, awakening in me a longing for the unattainable.

  That summer, though, I learnt that dreams do sometimes come true: decked out in rosebuds and a hat with the most seductively frilly brim, I went out promenading with my dear Amina. I would be stiff with pride when people turned to look at her in the park, gazing until she disappeared from view. Beautiful women were not in short supply there, it should be said. Today, no longer blinded by passion, I realize that Amina wasn’t physically beautiful, but possessed charm, which like all charm is difficult to analyse. She had a sparkling freshness and a good figure, and dressed elegantly, but that is not enough to explain her powers of seduction, so great that almost all the men who came into contact with her courted her. How well I understood them, and how I envied them! If only I were one of those free men, able to please Amina—a man and not a little girl, still condemned to governesses and castor oil.

  That year, the fatal year of 1914, Kislovodsk was full of Russians, who usually went abroad but had been forced by the war to remain in their own country. The spa towns of the North Caucasus were full of the carriages of princes, millionaires and celebrities of all kinds. Balls, concerts, ballets and ex
cursions filled the eternal leisure time of this idle society. Far away from Baku and decent Islamic ways, Amina could lead the free, society existence she had always been used to. Greatly helped by Leyla, my father’s favourite daughter, who ardently hoped for emancipation too, Amina obtained practically all she desired; and since she desired a lot, she obtained a lot.

  Leyla had become a marriageable young woman: the warning signs could not be denied. All the requirements were in place: her age, her physical development, her behaviour. On the advice of Amina, who had an excellent influence on her appearance, Leyla removed her grenadier’s moustache and trimmed her eyebrows, so thick they took up a good third of her forehead. Instead of wearing dresses of watered silk (taffetas shan-jan, as it was pronounced in Russian, from the French taffeta changeant), set off by gold lace and pearl embroidery, she dressed in an understated manner, which the aunts, however, considered poor and unworthy of the daughter of a rich family (one of the richest in Baku, as they liked to point out). Leyla was extremely plump and decided to lose weight by following a brilliantly simple and effective regime of her own invention: she would secretly eat chocolate an hour before meals, after which she would no longer be hungry and could watch us eat with the haughty disdain of an ascetic floating above earthly concerns. As well as these meals of chocolate, she drank vinegar by the glass, also in secret, of course. The effect was striking: Leyla melted away—her generous hips disappeared, her breasts, which seemed destined to feed an entire tribe, deflated; her face, round as the full moon, became oval, and Leyla could at last cross her legs, something she had previously found difficult to do. How her health withstood this regime is another matter, and one worthy of some concern. But withstand it it did, and beneath the kilos of melted fat emerged a splendid girl: ‘a real beauty’, as families love to say, proud of their output. Her eyes especially were an astounding size and the deepest black. Amina’s father (the engineer who sold nothing and had no fortune) would say in distaste: ‘In the Caucasus even the dogs have beautiful eyes,’ but he could not help admiring Leyla’s.

  She was a girl whose fancies sometimes touched on madness. She was a mass of manias; perhaps the most noticeable was tearing out her hair. The phrase ‘tearing out her hair’ brings to mind an image of despair; that wasn’t the case with Leyla at all. She would tear out her hair very calmly, or better still, methodically. This is how she did it: my sister would sit at a table, on which she would place a book with a light cover, then pull out one hair from the middle of her head, and hold it up in the air for several moments, studying it carefully with her enormous, wide eyes; then she would place it on the book and examine it for a long time. When she had examined it to her heart’s content, she would begin the operation again with another hair. One might think I’m exaggerating for the sake of the story, but I’m not inventing anything. She started to go bald from tearing out so much hair; she carried on anyway, despite being forbidden to do it. She would lock herself in her room and give herself up to this pleasant pastime, so often and so thoroughly that she became completely bald and had to have a wig made, which she was very proud of and wore with panache. She presumably did not give up this mania so easily: she must have continued it at night when she had taken her wig off, as her hair was not regrowing. It was only many years later that Leyla stopped this absorbing activity and her naturally thick hair grew back on her head.

  But I am in no position to mock: I had manias to match my older sister’s. For example, I would play with my eyebrows and pull them out. I derived hours of pleasure from fiddling with them; I twisted them and tugged them, making them hurt. I wasn’t trying to pull them out, and actually would have preferred them to stay in place, but, unfortunately, I played so much with the hairs that they ended up in my fingers and my brow became as bald as Leyla’s scalp. But I had only to leave them alone for ten days for my eyebrows to grow back in all their fullness. This mania troubled me for many years: though I resolved to cure myself of it, it proved stronger than me and would control my restless fingers, always on the lookout for something to fiddle with. Later, I found a name for it in the medical dictionary—‘trichotillomania’ (I’m not sure of the spelling).

  Another of my manias, more of an obsession, was the obligation to touch an object: the corner of a table, the back of a chair, an electric switch. I could be about to drop off, snug in my warm bed, when I would suddenly feel this obligation: ‘You must go and touch the corner of the table, you must.’ I would try to resist, pretend I hadn’t heard, but the command would return, pounding incessantly until I got up to go and touch the corner of the table. Then I would go back to bed, hoping to get to sleep. But often it would begin all over again, several times in succession, and every time I had to get up… But let’s get back to Kislovodsk.

  We had hardly been there three weeks when the Family turned up. First Aunt Rena, then the two other sisters with their broods; then Uncle Ibrahim with his young wife.

  ‘What?’ they must have said. ‘Amina’s in Kislovodsk; Mirza* (my father) and his children are in Kislovodsk? What about us?’ Weren’t they civilized too and just as capable of travelling and staying somewhere other than the country? So the whole Family, minus Grandmother, assembled in this spa town.

  Amina wept. Was she doomed to rot away surrounded by all these relatives? Fortunately for her, the aunts had to stay a long way from us, for lack of accommodation, but we met them constantly in this small town, centred on the park and casino. Buoyed by my father’s support, Amina decided to ignore the opinion of her in-laws and continued to lead her society life, criticized, spied upon and covered in opprobrium. She met up with friends from Moscow and made a host of new acquaintances, some of them deemed ‘undesirable’ by the aunts. As for Leyla, intoxicated by her growing beauty and a sense of freedom, she flirted furiously and indiscriminately: any man over the age of sixteen and below the age of sixty was potential prey. A watchful eye had to be kept on her, but half a dozen pairs of eyes were not enough for the task. ‘She has to be married, ay Mirza!’ the aunts cried to my father, who wasted his breath explaining to them the new ideas about women’s freedom. And they too wasted their breath giving him advice, calling him mad and a bad Muslim. Each side remained convinced of their cherished rightness. Leyla had no lack of suitors, quite the reverse: offers of marriage flooded in once her marriageability became public knowledge. Every free Muslim of sound mind sought the honour of becoming her husband, but all were considered unworthy of such a treasure.

  When we returned to Baku in the autumn, Amina and Leyla continued their triumphant offensive under the banner of ‘Progress for All’. Faced by these two redoubtable forces, my father ceded more and more ground. Powerless and trembling with horror, the family watched these changes. There were soirées with an orchestra at which women danced with real men. There was even a masked ball, at which Leyla dressed as a pageboy, wore breeches and scandalized ‘the entire city’, to listen to the aunts. Instead of talking, eyes lowered modestly, with young Muslims who were respectful of their family and their millions, Amina and Leyla would take their languorous ease (still in the words of my aunts) on the faux-luxurious divans of the Moorish salon, and flirt indiscriminately with infidels who were considered suspect, since the family knew neither their father nor their mother. As for alcohol, which was forbidden by the Prophet and had never passed our lips before my father’s second marriage, it became the daily bread of this house, henceforth condemned to the just wrath of Allah. ‘The champagne flowed freely,’ to use the classic phrase. Thus our world marched towards disaster.

  * In France, the boy’s name Mirza, meaning ‘master’ in Persian, is most improperly given to dogs and, even worse, bitches.

  10

  One dark winter morning, Fräulein Anna was surprised not to see Leyla up and about, so she went and knocked on her door. No reply. Fräulein Anna opened the door and gave a cry. The room had clearly not been used the night before: the curtains were open, the bed made, there was a complete, total, unm
istakable absence of Leyla. Fräulein Anna’s knees started to tremble and her heart pounded. Where could she be, the dreadful child? Fräulein Anna spied a letter on the table, pounced on it, read it and collapsed. ‘I am leaving with the man I love, without whom I cannot live. Do not look for me. Forgive me. Adieu.’

  An hour later the entire family was gathered around my father, shouting, crying and cursing. It was an unbridled triumph for the Muslim traditionalists. ‘I told you so,’ one of the aunts shouted; ‘It could only end in shame,’ another screamed; ‘You’ve got what you wanted,’ a brother-in-law declared; ‘That will teach you,’ hissed Asad and Ali’s father, who had come, despite a recent estrangement, with the sole aim of witnessing my father’s humiliation. After every shout, every scream, Aunt Rena’s husband, alone in his deafness and with his hand cupped around his ear, would ask anxiously, ‘What’s he saying? What’s she saying?’—garnering in return only impatient cries of ‘Leave us in peace.’

  A total victory for the other side. My father aged, in despair. How could his Leyla, his beloved daughter, have gone off with a man? A young girl from the best Muslim family in Baku, such a rich and respected family. Who could this man be? Certainly not a Muslim: such infamy could come only from an infidel (curse them all). ‘Were it not for their influence, such shame would never have befallen us,’ Grandmother cried.

  The event had been christened: it was ‘the Shame’, ‘the Great Shame’. From now on, the family would talk of it in the same way they talked of an earthquake or a great plague.

  ‘I’ll kill her like a dog,’ my father shouted with conviction.

  While the men approved of this drastic decision, the women burst into tears of anticipation and regret.