Dream Land (11 page)

“They’re Crimean Tatars. And you’re a hero of the Siege of Leningrad.”

“That’s what Andrei says too. He doesn’t care about gossip.”

“He might have to, soon. And you too, Zarema.”

“I know.” Round and round she twisted her wedding ring. “It’s so hard here, alone. Did you think it was going to be so hard?”

“You could go back too,” Safi suggested timidly.

The two women looked at her as if she had sprouted horns. “Go back?”

“To Uzbekistan. I mean, if Remzi’s there.” Safi felt herself going red under their stares.

“No I couldn’t.” Zarema sat up straight, and stopped twisting her ring. “This is where we belong. The gossip’s nothing. Where else can I stand up and say, ‘You can’t question what I do, because here I have a right to be’? It’s my land, it’s my home, and there’s nowhere else in the whole wide world for me but here.”

Safi bowed her head humbly. The cheerful
toot toot!
of a horn sounded in the distance.

“There’s Andrei.” Zarema buttoned her coat and got up. “He’s gone miles out of his way for me; these villages aren’t on his route at all. I mustn’t keep him waiting.” She hugged Safi’s mother tightly. “Things’ll get better, won’t they, Elmira?”

“Of course they will.”

“You’ll see, Safi.”

Down by the road Refat and Ibrahim were sitting under a battered umbrella next to their notices. Refat was writing to his mother, and Ibrahim was annoying him by reading over his shoulder and suggesting amendments. Opposite, the police lounged under the hedge. Two tipsy-looking men from Krasniy Mak muttered dreary insults. Safi noticed they had captured one of the signs that said
REBUILD OUR ANCIENT TATAR VILLAGE!
Someone had crossed out
BUILD
and written above it
BURY
and added at the end in small letters
AND THE TATARS TOO
.

Refat chewed the end of his pen. “‘I promise I’ll go to Kermenchik soon,
Ana
dear, and see if your house is standing…’”

“No, Refat, you should write: ‘I haven’t forgotten about Kermenchik and your ancestral home. But you must understand, things have changed a lot in Crimea. I don’t know when I’ll have time…’”

“Doesn’t matter – she’ll still yell at me next time she writes,” Refat said gloomily. Every single letter Refat received, along with urging him to get married, was a reminder that he should visit the village where his mother had grown up. Mehmed and Ibrahim tried to discourage him from going there, though; they said that even if it were still standing, her house would have been given to someone else.

A big blue and white bus rounded the corner and slowed, tooting again.

“Kermenchik is on Andrei’s bus route,” Zarema said. “He’ll take you there for free. He’s such a good man.” She sighed wistfully. “The first time he saw me he said, ‘I always felt there was something missing from Crimea. And then the Crimean Tatars began to come back, and I understood what it was. Crimea without Tatars is like soup without seasoning. That’s what you Tatars are. Crimean salt.’”

The bus stopped. It was empty except for the driver, a small, fair, dainty man who climbed out to take Zarema’s arm and escort her up the steps as if she were a princess. The locals wolf-whistled and shouted, “What is this, a private bus service for Tatar slags?”

Refat put down his letter and stood up abruptly, thin Ibrahim next to him barely reaching his shoulder.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves, speaking in front of a lady like that,” the driver said quietly to the locals. He turned to the Tatars. “Anyone else want a ride?”

“Maybe to Kermenchik…”

“I don’t think you should go, Refat,” Ibrahim said, but Refat shook his cousin’s hand from his arm.

“Well, let me know when you decide.” The driver waved as he got back in the cabin. “If I can I’ll come and pick you up.”

“You’re very kind to us Tatars,” Mama said. Safi thought there was a strangely antagonistic note in her voice.

“Crimean salt!” he replied. “That’s what you are – Crimean salt!” The door swung shut and the bus drove away.

“Is that Andrei?” Safi asked.

“That’s Andrei.”

“And he’s Russian.”

“That’s right.” Mama looked at her, stern and troubled. “Now Safi. Don’t mention this to Papa.”

“I won’t.” Safi wondered what her father would say about Zarema and Andrei. She guessed it wouldn’t be anything very nice. “It’s not fair,” she remarked as they walked back to the house. “I couldn’t even get a bus driver to stop for me on his main route, and Zarema’s got one going right out of his way for her.”

“Ah, well, when you’re a bit older I’m sure you’ll have all the bus drivers of Crimea falling at your feet,” Mama teased. “Still, I hope this Andrei doesn’t bring Zarema even more trouble than she’s got already.”

“Why would he?”

Mama frowned. “You know Tatars. We don’t forgive betrayal.” She looked at Safi’s puzzled face. “Oh, never mind.”

Papa and Mehmed were still banging in nails and shouting comments at each other across the roof, their hair flattened to their heads with damp. Lutfi and Grandpa sat in the
chaykhana
, sanding strips of wood for the window frames. Safi climbed in and leant against Grandpa, inhaling his dusty, comforting smell of pipe smoke and coffee. How could he still smell of coffee, when they hadn’t drunk it for so long? He was like the pot and grinder out in the salt steppe, holding memories like coffee dust.

Grandpa looked down at her, his lined brown face folding into the smile he never gave anyone else. “Hello there. What’s the matter?”

Safi knew she couldn’t say anything to him about Zarema and Andrei. “Nothing. Tell me a story,
Khartbaba
. A proper old Tatar story.”

G
randpa stroked Safi’s plaits gently. “Why don’t you tell me a story instead, Safinar?”

Safi looked startled. “I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I don’t know any.”

One day it’ll be you telling the stories, Grandpa thought. But he said, “
Bir zamanda bar eken, bir zamanda yok eken
. Do you know what that means? ‘Sometime it was, or sometime it wasn’t at all.’ That’s the proper way to start a story.”

Grandpa leant back, trying to ease the ache in his chest. “When I was the same age as you, my mother told me tales of Alim, the last great horseback hero of Crimea. Even the mountains took pride in Alim, because in him dwelt the bravest folly, the deadliest aim, the most pitiless scorn and the most indulgent heart. For seven years, all Crimea talked only of Alim the outlaw. This was many years ago, when my grandfather was a little boy, and suffering like all the rest under the heavy hand of the Russian tsar and his officials. Seven times Alim was captured, and seven times he escaped. The poor loved him, the rich feared him, and only one man sought a meeting with him. That was the old tsarist chief of Karasubazar. That man’s glance was so keen you could not escape it, not even under the ground. Two dancers can’t dance on one rope: that’s what the wisest old Tatars said about Alim and the chief.”

Lutfi stopped sanding and leant his chin on his hand, listening with alert, bright eyes.

“That was the year of the black frost in Crimea. The poor people endured it, but it was no easier for the rich, when the hoof beats of Alim the horseback bandit rang loud on the frost-hard roads. Alim was everywhere. He was even in the house of the chief of Karasubazar. He walked inside boldly and said, ‘What reward will you give me if I betray Alim?’

“The chief didn’t recognize him. He said, ‘When I’ve Alim in my hands, I’ll put a hundred roubles in yours.’

“And Alim laughed and said, ‘Here was Alim in your hands, and still you couldn’t hold him!’ Then he jumped out of the window and rode away swifter than the wind.

“Alim rode to Kiziltash, where there was a cave to shelter him in winter. Only Batal from the village coffee house knew he was there, but Batal would sooner swallow his own tongue than betray Alim. Batal had a daughter, Shashne, and Alim loved and indulged the little girl. He sent her Turkish fezzes and embroidered slippers; he gave her gold earrings for her pretty ears.”

“Lucky Shashne,” Safi said wistfully. She wished a handsome hero would give her presents like that. She hadn’t had anything nice and new for what felt like years.

Lutfi made an impatient noise. “Go on.”

“Little Shashne boasted about her presents. She told her friend, a rich trader’s daughter, ‘When I’m grown up, I’m going to have Alim for a husband.’ The trader heard it and he rode to Karasubazar, because he was afraid of Alim, and to be afraid means to hate.

“The chief came with his guards to Kiziltash. ‘Not a hen leaves a henhouse, not a pigeon leaves a windowsill of this village, until Alim is in my hands.’ Then the Crimean Tatars understood that it was the end for Alim.

“That night a terrible storm broke the trees in the orchards and howled over the mountain. In the secret cave, Alim dreamt that circles of black snakes hung from the roof. One reached down, slippery and cool, and twined round his neck like the hangman’s rope.

“Alim awoke, and there was a rope round his neck. On his chest knelt the chief of Karasubazar, and the chief said, ‘You were in my house once as a guest, Alim. Now, see, I’ve come to visit you.’

“The day they brought Alim in, Kiziltash was a dead village. All the Tatars were trying to hide from the keen gaze of the chief of Karasubazar; hide under the ground they would, if they could. The chief looked a question at Alim, and the outlaw answered, ‘I know. Now there’ll be no more horseback heroes in Crimea.’

“Alim stood in shackles, and with him Batal from the coffee house. Only Batal’s little daughter, Shashne, was there, crying, because she had no one to look after her now.

“The chief said, ‘I was almost forgetting, there’s a debt on me. Remember I told you, when I’ve Alim in my hands, a hundred roubles in yours. Now I have Alim, the money is in your hands.’

“Alim looked at Shashne. He said, ‘Give it to her.’

“The column moved away down the long road, and now Alim has gone for ever from the mountains of Crimea.”

There was a sudden sharp clatter. It was Lutfi, throwing his piece of wood down on the table. “They betrayed him! The Tatars themselves!”

“But it was the trader,” Safi said. “Because he was rich. It wasn’t Shashne’s fault, not really.”

Lutfi scrambled out of the
chaykhana
. “It’s a stupid story.” He walked away quickly towards the bonfires and the police.

Up on the ladder, Mehmed called something out, and Papa laughed. The nails going into the roof went
tappety-tap-tap
, like the sound of hoof beats, riding away down a distant mountain road.

A
ndrei threw the bus round the bends with the reckless joy of a bobsleigh rider. The other passengers seemed accustomed to this, but Refat’s face was tinged green. “If I die on the way, write to Mother and tell her I did my best to get to Kermenchik,” he said to Safi.

“You can’t die; think what she’ll say!”

“Oh, I know what she’ll say. ‘It’s not enough that Allah saw fit to let the Russians invade Crimea in the first place, that He allowed that oaf Stalin to send us all away, that He gave me a stroke six months ago so I couldn’t return to Crimea; no, He had to let my fool of a son take a lift with a kamikaze bus driver…’” Refat sighed gustily. “You’re right, Safi. We’ll just have to hold on tight.”

Refat had argued with Mehmed and Ibrahim and, a week later, finally taken up Andrei’s offer to drive him to Kermenchik. In private, Mehmed had asked Safi and Grandpa to go too. “I don’t think Refat realizes what it’ll be like,” he’d said worriedly. “I don’t want him to be on his own.”

The road looped down the valley between smooth high cliffs. In the flashes of sunlight the cliffs gleamed silver; in the shadows they were dark violet. Silver and purple clouds raced. At the head of the valley, Ai-Petri Mountain dazzled with its cap of snow.

Refat pointed. “Up in those cliffs are the caves where Alim the bandit hid out, and where my uncle when he was a boy kept an old rifle and took potshots at the Germans.”