The Mountain and the Wall by Alisa Ganieva

have asked me to install the tiles—if she had, nothing would have happened. I really put them up to stay, just ask Magomed. But Zapir, Paizulla’s son, she asked him to do it. That’s why…”
    “No, not about Mesedu,” Shamil waved his hand. “It’s something else. They say we’re being walled off from Russia. Border troops, you name it. Like the Berlin Wall.”
    They stopped at a crossroads, jammed with honking cars. Faces poked out of the car windows, frowning, and arms waved wildly in the air. Young pedestrians crowded on the curbs, photographing the traffic with their cellphones. Khabibula gestured toward his ears to show that he couldn’t hear anything above the traffic noise.
    “ Le , where are they all going?” he asked, perking up at the sight. “Just look at them!”
    “Must be road work up ahead.”
    “Come on, my friend,” Khabibula proposed again. “I’ll give you some cottage cheese…What’s this about a wall?”
    “Supposedly they’re building a wall in the north, to cut us off,” repeated Shamil, reluctantly.
    “ Ai, astauperulla ,” laughed Khabibula, “Forget about that khapur-chapur of yours! What are you talking about? Have you been visiting the newspaper? It’s those journalists of yours making it all up. Here’s our turn.”
    He waved his plump hand toward a long, cluttered street, littered with private shops.
    “I can’t, but look, don’t take it the wrong way—I’ll come by later, Khabibula,” Shamil smiled. “I swear—but not right now.”
    “When can you? I have to go back to the kutan ,” his companion answered briskly and straightened his cheap shirt over his big belly.
    “Maybe tomorrow,” Shamil promised vaguely, looking back at the honking cars.
    “I’ll be expecting you!” cried Khabibula with a smile, giving him his hand. “See you then, my friend.”
    And off he went, limping and shuffling lightly in his tattered sandals. Shamil turned back in the other direction and followed the crowd.
    “ Le , what’s going on there?” he asked a young man who was running past.
    “Some kind of demonstration, I think,” the man said hastily, glancing sideways at Shamil as he ran, then immediately dissolved into the mob. The Dagestani national anthem buzzed in Shamil’s pocket, and he eagerly pressed his phone to his ear.
    “ Salam aleikum, Uncle Alikhan!”
    “ Vaaleikum salam, Shamil.” His uncle’s voice was hollow and hesitant. “I saw your calls, but couldn’t answer, there’s a meeting going on here in the Ministry. Have you already heard about it, about the wall?”
    “Yes, they were talking about it at the paper.”
    “They say it’s true…” Uncle Alikhan breathed heavily into the phone. “We’ll be making a decision…The separatists are gathering there to talk about it too, looks like.”
    “At the Kumyk Theater?” asked Shamil, watching the young people flowing in a smooth stream into the square, heading toward the theater, a semicircular building with an elaborate façade.
    “I’m not sure. Where are you right now?”
    “I’m here too.”
    “You shouldn’t be standing around there—anyway, we don’t really know yet ourselves, we’re trying to figure it out. Farid from the government, the one who…”
    His uncle’s voice cut out. Realizing that he’d lost the connection, Shamil put the phone back in his pocket and took a look around.
    3
    People flowed in from the side streets, and their bright T-shirts painted the square in a blurred, ever-changing play of color. Shamil stood on tiptoe and saw a group of people clustered around the theater entrance,where a man stood with a megaphone. He was speaking in Kumyk, and it was impossible to make out what he was saying. Shamil wedged himself through the crowd. Gradually he began to catch individual words. The crowd exclaimed approvingly:
    “ Tiuz ! Tiuz !”
    Then a man with a mustache took the megaphone and began to speak.
    “ Aziz yoldashlar ! We’ve been hearing rumors