centuries in Kiev, till the Slavs swarmed over the city wearing animal skins, and the ancient state fell to ruin. Now our kurgans have been destroyed, our steppe plowed over, our cemeteries defiled. But we will not lose hope! We will take up the blue and yellow Khazar flag, will add the green of Islam, and make a new banner for the free Kipchak Steppe!”
The crowd erupted in delight, and voices called out: “To the Government House! To the Government!” The crowd lurched, heaved, and headed off in the direction of the main square, with the megaphone still roaring in the background. People shouted excitedly in Kumyk and jostled Shamil from behind. He retreated to the tall parapets adjacent to the Caspian Beer Hall and then began to push through the crowd, against its flow, toward the waterfront. Waves of humanity washed over him, pressed him up against a stone pillar, and finally tossed him out onto the steps leading to the embankment.
Lost in thought, Shamil wandered around the withered flowerbeds and blue spruce trees, passing the same corner several times. Then the yellow tank of a kvass stand caught his eye, and he went over to buy a glass.
“What’s all the fuss about?” asked the bored-looking, disheveled salesgirl, nodding in the direction of the Kumyk Theater.
“ Khabary ,” answered Shamil. “There’s a rumor that we’re going to be walled off from Russia. Now the Kumyks are all worked up—they want their native lands returned to them.”
“ Ma !” exclaimed the salesgirl, raising one plucked brow skeptically.
“It wasn’t enough for those people from the lowlands to destroy the Union,” Shamil heard a raspy voice behind him.
He turned and saw two old men in white Panama hats. The one to whom the voice evidently belonged slowly unfolded a checkered handkerchief and began mopping his sweaty face. The other man shook a wooden backgammon box and ordered two glasses of kvass.
“Our Kumyks,” continued the first man, “want to unite with the Balkhars, but who’s going to let the Balkhars go? The Nogais won’t join with the Kumyks either—first they need to figure out what to do with the land.”
“But va, why?” the salesgirl asked, still surprised, as she turned the gleaming gold-colored handle on the tank.
The man finished wiping his face and burst out laughing.
“That’s my question, too: why?”
The second man tucked the backgammon box under his arm, took the two full glasses of kvass, one in each hand, and growled:
“We need a firm hand, like under Stalin, fi-r-r-r-r-m!”
Both of them glanced at Shamil, who was standing to one side with his glass. He hurried away; he had no desire to get into a conversation about the Kumyk and Nogai steppes at this point. He decided to head home, where he could think things over in peace.
4
Asya ran to Khabibula’s, bought a couple of jars of fragrant heavy cream from his wife, then hurried home. From there she set off at last to Aunt Patimat’s to complete her errand and deliver the cream, which would eventually thicken into sour cream. The family considered Patimat, Shamil’s mother, standoffish, but from her childhood Asya had always enjoyed visiting her; she loved the particular smell that came from the copper-banded trunks in her apartment. The jars clinked against each other in the bag as she walked. Her hands began to feel numb, and scraps of meaningless tunes and advertising jingles played raggedly in her head in an endless loop, along with the strange expression “donkey salt.” Asya came to her senses only when a man tiling the roof of someone’s house laughed and shouted down to her:
“Hey, talking to yourself?” He snickered. “Talking to herself!”
Asya realized that she had been saying the phrase aloud, and that “donkey salt” was Avar for thyme, and that her mother had said something about thyme that very morning.
Asya’s mother, Patimat’s cousin, was dark-skinned from birth. Everyone assumed she was
The crowd erupted in delight, and voices called out: “To the Government House! To the Government!” The crowd lurched, heaved, and headed off in the direction of the main square, with the megaphone still roaring in the background. People shouted excitedly in Kumyk and jostled Shamil from behind. He retreated to the tall parapets adjacent to the Caspian Beer Hall and then began to push through the crowd, against its flow, toward the waterfront. Waves of humanity washed over him, pressed him up against a stone pillar, and finally tossed him out onto the steps leading to the embankment.
Lost in thought, Shamil wandered around the withered flowerbeds and blue spruce trees, passing the same corner several times. Then the yellow tank of a kvass stand caught his eye, and he went over to buy a glass.
“What’s all the fuss about?” asked the bored-looking, disheveled salesgirl, nodding in the direction of the Kumyk Theater.
“ Khabary ,” answered Shamil. “There’s a rumor that we’re going to be walled off from Russia. Now the Kumyks are all worked up—they want their native lands returned to them.”
“ Ma !” exclaimed the salesgirl, raising one plucked brow skeptically.
“It wasn’t enough for those people from the lowlands to destroy the Union,” Shamil heard a raspy voice behind him.
He turned and saw two old men in white Panama hats. The one to whom the voice evidently belonged slowly unfolded a checkered handkerchief and began mopping his sweaty face. The other man shook a wooden backgammon box and ordered two glasses of kvass.
“Our Kumyks,” continued the first man, “want to unite with the Balkhars, but who’s going to let the Balkhars go? The Nogais won’t join with the Kumyks either—first they need to figure out what to do with the land.”
“But va, why?” the salesgirl asked, still surprised, as she turned the gleaming gold-colored handle on the tank.
The man finished wiping his face and burst out laughing.
“That’s my question, too: why?”
The second man tucked the backgammon box under his arm, took the two full glasses of kvass, one in each hand, and growled:
“We need a firm hand, like under Stalin, fi-r-r-r-r-m!”
Both of them glanced at Shamil, who was standing to one side with his glass. He hurried away; he had no desire to get into a conversation about the Kumyk and Nogai steppes at this point. He decided to head home, where he could think things over in peace.
4
Asya ran to Khabibula’s, bought a couple of jars of fragrant heavy cream from his wife, then hurried home. From there she set off at last to Aunt Patimat’s to complete her errand and deliver the cream, which would eventually thicken into sour cream. The family considered Patimat, Shamil’s mother, standoffish, but from her childhood Asya had always enjoyed visiting her; she loved the particular smell that came from the copper-banded trunks in her apartment. The jars clinked against each other in the bag as she walked. Her hands began to feel numb, and scraps of meaningless tunes and advertising jingles played raggedly in her head in an endless loop, along with the strange expression “donkey salt.” Asya came to her senses only when a man tiling the roof of someone’s house laughed and shouted down to her:
“Hey, talking to yourself?” He snickered. “Talking to herself!”
Asya realized that she had been saying the phrase aloud, and that “donkey salt” was Avar for thyme, and that her mother had said something about thyme that very morning.
Asya’s mother, Patimat’s cousin, was dark-skinned from birth. Everyone assumed she was
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