“So?”
“He’s got the gift of the gab, his bosses respect him, he’s got a great career ahead of him! They say that Khalilbek himself …”
“This Khalilbek of yours is in prison! I’m sick of hearing about him!” I shrugged her off.
Having lost the second battle, Mama appealed to the aunties. She sent them to my room, where I was reading an old science fiction novel, having tucked my cell phone under my side in case Marat called.
“Patimat,” the aunties started in our language. “You’re not seventeen any more. Take pity on your parents. Just another couple years and you’ll be a total old maid. Who will marry you then? Just some divorced guy with kids or an old widower, no one else. Look what happened to poor Khalisat …”
And the aunties launched into a mournful litany of all the overripe, over-the-hill, barren old maids in my mother’s clan. All those girls had been haughty know-it-alls who had stuck up their noses at good, simple young men, and then withered up, went gray, and sunk so low that no one would have them.
“And this is just what awaits you!” admonished the aunties. “Look out, don’t miss the last train.”
“Aida is younger than you, and she is already pregnant with her fourth!” Mama just had to throw that in.
“What makes you think she’s pregnant again?” I snapped.
“You think I can’t tell? She was over here the other day, and I noticed her belly immediately.”
“Aida has just put on weight.” I refused to believe it.
“Your brother ought to fatten Lyusya up like that.” Mama sighed cattily, “And if it doesn’t work, then she should let him trade her in for someone who can.”
“Mashallah, what will be will be,” the aunties tried to comfort Mama, stroking her bony, tense shoulders with their big hands.
I felt like running out for the evening, but here, too, Mama contrived a way to torment me. She undertook an ambitious project to clean Papa’s garage while he was out. The aunties were only too happy to join in, to drag things around, scour, pack, wash, scrub, scrape, clean. If our guests had harnessed themselves to this hard labor, then who was I to shirk my duty? So I joined them, choked on soot and crawled into inaccessible, distant corners with a soapy scrub brush.
Finally, we finished the garage, but then the aunties came up with another one of their ideas. They huddled in the corner with Mama, then announced:
“By the way, Patimat, your third cousin has really taken a shine to you.”
The cousin! Great, just what I needed.
“He’s younger than me!” I wailed.
“What difference does it make? My husband is also a year younger than me,” confided one of the aunties.
Well, let’s suppose that’s true. But what did that have to do with me?
Mama also seized upon the idea. Of course, she preferred Timur as a man of substance with a bright future. But the cousin was also a fine catch. First of all, he was already in the family. Second, he was energetic and ambitious. Third … Mama didn’t make it to “third;” I absolutely and categorically refused to listen to another word.
The phone rang, sending my heart into my throat, but it wasn’t Marat, rather the loathsome, accursed Timur. As usual, I didn’t answer, and sat down next to Granny, who was hemming the edge of some fine-patterned material.
“I know everything,” Granny announced. “Someone proposed to you, and you turned him down.”
“Yes, he’s a horrible person, honestly,” I frowned.
“Don’t frown!” she took me down a peg. “Put a Band-Aid on the bridge of your nose so it won’t get wrinkled.
I laughed. What else could I do?
“How can I convince my parents that those guys are wrong for me? You’re smart, tell me.” I went for flattery.
Granny said nothing at first, just pinched the dangling thread with the needle on the end in her colorless lips. Then she drew out the thread and started blubbering some gibberish in our native language:
“You’ve seen the sea, haven’t you? You’ve seen it?”
“Yes. And?”
“Who are the ones who cling to dry land? Those who know the law. The Ustazy, wise teachers, say that such people are literalists. They know every tiny detail—how to do what when. But there are others who seek the truth. They go out into the sea and dive to the very bottom, seeking pearls. They are the voyagers. And there is a third type. They go out in boats, since that is safer. It’s not my words: it’s what the Ustazy say.”
“So who are the people of this third type?”
“Those who have reached the end of their path … I can see that you want to set forth on your journey, to go out and dive for pearls, but your mother is back on the shore. It’s your choice: stay or move.”
“I don’t understand …”
Granny has a way of muddling things up in my head. Why not just give a straight answer, without equivocating? She herself had probably never gone out on the water, though the sea is right here, right under her nose. All she has to do is to go toward town, then turn to the shore. It churns, it surges, it billows, it beckons.
A boy I used to be friends with when I was a child drowned one September in the Caspian at the beginning of the eighth grade. He had skipped school and gone to the shore. He hadn’t gone too far out, but the treacherous current had swept him away toward the horizon. They say that the boy panicked and resisted, trying to fight the waves, but ultimately had became fatigued and sank below the foamy surface for all eternity. No one saw him; no one came to his aid. They figured out later what had happened when his trousers and sneakers were found on the beach. To hire divers, the boy’s bereaved parents sold all their furniture and their TV set. The body was found far away, unrecognizable, beaten against sharp stones. They identified him by his swimsuit. When he was carried through the streets to the cemetery, the drowned boy filled the whole town with the smell of seaweed.
My brother, spooked by this sad story, had instructed me:
“If the current carries you out to sea, never try to swim against the current, never try to return to shore. Let yourself relax, don’t panic, and the sea current will curve back around and carry you to dry land.”
He had put it differently, of course, but what difference did it make? Fortunately, I never had occasion to need his advice.
I realized that I hadn’t gone swimming in the sea since I got back from Moscow. Papa had offered to take me many times, but I hadn’t been in the mood for splashing and collecting slippery shells. And now, suddenly, I had this urge to go. To the sea, the sea … It was all Granny and those divers of hers.
The telephone rang again. Marat!
“Patya, hi! Can you come in twenty minutes to the corner where the road turns off to the prison?”
“Yes!” I blurted out, though I had no idea of how I was going to slip away from Mama.
I combed my hair, powered my glistening nose, waited until Mama went out into the spotless, gleaming garage, and took off through the gate. Marat was waiting for me at the corner. There were practically no houses around: just a gatehouse, a couple of uninhabited private residences, and the elevated gas pipelines extending into the distance. The prison looked out at us from the other side of the field, not the slightest bit frightening, just an ordinary building.
“You know that I’m leaving soon, Patya,” Marat began and then hesitated, seeking the right words.
Everything inside me burned. Something important was happening, but I didn’t understand what exactly. Marat was tense, couldn’t speak. I prompted him:
“Go ahead and tell me. I will understand.”
He looked at me with joy in his eyes, and the words tumbled out:
“It’s all so absurd—absurd that I have to rush off so soon, when we’ve just met. But I’m leaving, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back here in time. What I’m saying is probably going to scare you …”
“What words? What are you talking about? I promise you I won’t be
scared!” I reassured him.
The anxiety vanished from Marat’s face and he laughed:
“You’re so funny, Patya! How can you know?”
Then he turned sad again, and again hesitated. I perched on a gas pipe and gave him an encouraging smile. He continued:
“Don’t be disturbed by what I’m about to say. My mother is a real scatterbrain. She persuaded my father to reserve a banquet hall for my wedding, and they spent a huge amount of money on it. It’s on the outskirts of town. I don’t recall the name of the place, you may know better than I do …”
“What, are you having a wedding?” I asked huskily. The sky plunged downward, as if it were about to shatter into pieces. If I hadn’t been leaning on the pipe, I would probably have fallen backwards into a faint.
“No, no!” Marat hastily corrected himself. “I’m not! I mean, I am, but only if you agree.”
He stopped short and stared at me expectantly. I couldn’t understand any of it.
“What do you mean?”
“I want you to marry me. Not because the hall has been reserved. But because I feel that I’ve known you from the day I was born. And you are dear to me. Already. But I’m leaving, and the hall has been reserved.”
“What hall?” I lurched sideways, like a blind woman.
My head was spinning with the happiness that had come over me, and also with my lingering bewilderment as to what Marat was trying to say.
He came over and took me by the hand, and brought his tea-colored eyes close to mine.
“Do you feel sick?”
“No, not at all, but I don’t understand.”
“It’s my fault. I’m not making any sense,” he sighed, still gripping my hand. “Patya, tell me, will you be my wife?”
And again a stifling, effervescent fog descended over me and adhered to my lips and nose. I drank in as much of the steppe air as I could, then exhaled, nearly whistling the word:
“Yes!”
“August thirteenth.”
“Already? So soon?”
“The hall is already reserved.”
“Strange, Marat, very strange …”
“I know but you see … I don’t want to be trite, I don’t want to. But it’s as though we already know each other. It’s meant to be.”
“I think I understand. But we need more time. We have to check, to be sure.”
“We will have time! Our whole entire life!” Marat exclaimed joyfully and embraced my trembling shoulders.
But a little knot of uncertainty still throbbed inside me. I pulled away and exclaimed:
“Maybe it doesn’t matter to you who you marry? Slam, bam, anything, just get it done by the thirteenth!”
Marat too raised his voice: “Patya, this whole saga with the banquet hall is just a pretext. Don’t take things literally.” He opened his arms wide, to me and to the wind.
“Literalists ‘cling to dry land.’” I repeated what Granny had said.
A sudden gust of wind hurled a cloud of steppe dust at us, along with shreds of cardboard boxes that looked like dry crackers, a faint, simple melody from a distant tape player, and the dreary sound of cows mooing.
My petty fears dispersed, and I threw myself onto Marat’s chest, squeezing my eyes tight against the sand, the setting sun, the tears of joy that were bursting out of me, against conventions, and against the prison towers spying on us.
It was so hot, so hot, my head was spinning. It was time to say goodbye. We held each other’s hands tight, talked, giggled, interrupted each other, and couldn’t finish a single sentence.
Finally, Marat said that he would send his mother over to meet my mother and talk it over. Then, while he was in Moscow engaging in battle with the hellhounds of the justice system, they would work out the details. And then. And then …
“‘Cat soup!’ Don’t put off till tomorrow …” I giggled.
He also bent double with irrepressible laughter, bracing himself with his hands against his knees. We couldn’t stop.
When I arrived home, my whole body was still quivering from nerves, and the giggling fit had left a tingly sensation in my sides. I went into the room where Mama, the aunties and Granny were sitting in front of the television cracking walnuts with pliers. They must have sensed something; they turned away from the goings-on on the screen and stared at me expectantly.
“All right, I’m getting married after all,” I announced triumphantly to the gathering like a royal herald with a message from the queen.
“Good for you!” buzzed the aunties. “You changed your mind! You’ve seen the light!”
“To Timur?” Mama beamed.
“To Marat, the lawyer, Aselder and Khadizha’s son.”
“Wh-a-a-at?” Mama sprang up, and her pliers clattered to the floor. “What do you mean, ‘I’m getting married!’ You’ll get married if we give permission.”
She didn’t know how to react—to scold me or to rejoice—and she rushed over to the neighbors’ to see what they knew about Marat. While I waited for her to come back, I paced the room in a daze like a lunatic. I sang under my breath a catchy, tiresome popular song; I trembled at my own thoughts, heaving audible sighs; I hopped around in one place, stumbling and jumping up again; I radiated a million smiles.
Mama returned stern, with pursed lips.
“So, you were out walking the streets with him arm in arm where the whole town could see you!”
“Not arm in arm!”
“And you were in that dive!”
“What dive?”
“At Zarema’s, at the station! Not a single decent girl would let herself be seen there!”
“Mama, what do you mean, a dive? It’s a café!”
“Right, a café! Has a single one of your friends ever been in that café? Take any one of the girls—Amishka, Mimishka—not a single one of them has fallen so low! At Zarema’s! In the company of all kinds of rabble and lowlife trash!”
“There weren’t any lowlifes there.”
“Not another word out of you! The whole town knows about it already. Out alone with devil knows who and devil knows where! Look what Moscow has done to you. You’ve completely lost your conscience! You have brought shame upon me!”
Mama seethed. Shadows of neighbor women stirred in the corners of our house, burring their r’s, jabbering, flapping their long tongues:
“Shame, shame, shame!”
One of them flitted behind the wooden tub in which Mama kneaded dough. Another flew like a night moth over a flickering light bulb that was swaying on a crooked cord; another flipped the curtain against the windows.
“Flap, flap, flap!”
The walls launched into motion, and the voices roared, flowing into one another, calling back and forth; reproaches flew through the air, chasing one another, catching me everywhere I sought refuge.
“Tramp, slut, good-for-nothing!”
Mama enumerated my sins until she gasped for breath: tablecloths I had scalded with the iron, overcooked soups, late nights out, bright-colored pants that were too revealing, hair cut short like a eunuch’s.
“Don’t you realize who this Marat is? And his father? Womanizers, both of them. The papa knocked up the girl next door, ruined her life. She had his baby, a boy, and was forced to wander, homeless, the length and breadth of Russia. And the son runs around with that slut Angela, a prison cleaning-woman’s daughter. Just the other day he went knocking at her gate, the neighbors saw him over there!”
Knocked at her gate, the neighbors saw it … they are everywhere, eagle-eyed, ravenous. Their entire purpose in life is to notice things, to denounce, report what they say.
“And he’s brought shame on you, too. There’s no guarantee that he’ll marry you. And if he does, you will spend your days counting his lovers, one after the other. The moment you turn your back, he’ll be at Angela’s gate.”
I tried to evade them, to dodge the stones falling into my soul, even as it sang for joy.
“So what, it doesn’t
matter, so what … We’ll go to Moscow, and who cares about some Angela?”
But deep in my chest a shaggy tarantula had made itself a nest: what if it were true? That Marat was a womanizer. Shameless women would besiege him, block him from me with their taut bodies, lead him off into the slough of degradation, vice, oblivion …
Dive for pearls, leave the shore behind. The main thing—no matter what—dive for pearls. What could it mean?
Granny whispered to me that she would talk with Papa and that everything would be fine. And that Mama’s panic was meaningless. The aunties sat side by side in the kitchen, listening to the storm, all ears, chins protruding. Well, they sure got lucky: here they were in the thick middle of a juicy family scandal. Lick their chops, devour family gossip, be a part of the story.
“No, just look!” Mama would not be pacified. “Just listen who this tramp chose for herself! A friend of crazy Rusik, who was so stupid he brought on his own death!”
“Don’t blab about things you don’t understand,” Granny clucked. “Patimat’s fiancé can’t be a friend of his.”
“But that’s exactly what they told me! He could be just the same as his dead friend—may his sins be washed away! Map collector! Disco dancer!”
“Tango, Mama, tango,” for some reason I bothered to correct her, but my voice was drowned out in a hailstorm of fresh abuse:
“Friend of a complete wacko, son of a fornicator and money-grubber! His father, Aselder, warms a seat there in his Institute, makes himself out to be a learned man, worms his way into favor with the authorities. And his mother! That woman! Khadizha!”
“What?” the aunties chorused.
“His mother is a viper, all she can do is hiss at Khalilbek, even though he was their family’s benefactor. Claiming that Khalilbek wouldn’t let Aselder sell some stocks, that he supposedly killed feeble-minded Adik. Total malarkey. And not only that, she’s friends with that corrupt woman, Zarema!”
“What Zarema?” the aunties asked.
“She runs a café at the station, where the riff-raff hang out. Men only! And my daughter right there in the middle of it! Would a decent guy have taken a girl to a place like that?”
Bride and Groom Page 18
