Alina Bronsky - The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

John rarely said anything. But one day as we sat eating breakfast, he excused himself, got up, and came back a few moments later with a stack of newspapers. He put it down in front of me and before I could ask him the point of it all, I saw the photo on the top page. Aminat. All these papers had written articles about her and published photos of her.

“Tartar Orphan Causing a Stir,” “Anorexic Abuse Victim Sings Circles Around Competition,” “Descendent of Genghis Khan — Most Beautiful Eyes on German TV,” “Childhood Stolen, Girl Sings Her Way Into Viewers’ Hearts,” “Is She Really nineteen? Ten Pieces of Evidence That Suggest Aminat K. Is Still a Minor.”

I spread the papers out on the table in front of me so I wouldn’t miss a single column. I started to read. My Aminat was in the papers — and not just one paper, she was apparently in every paper, over and over. The photographers couldn’t get enough of her narrow face and mysterious eyes and shiny hair. Yes, she was beautiful, even though some of the shots didn’t capture her in the most flattering light. She looked so much like me.

I read how Aminat had grown up in a Soviet ghetto without a father, just her mother’s ever-changing men. How she had starved and had been beaten for being such a disobedient child. How finally she had been sold to a German pedophile by her grandmother in exchange for him marrying her mother, and how she landed in Germany as a result. I read and read, but there was nothing about me. Typical.

“Look, John,” I said. “Nothing but lies. The papers always do that.”

John nodded.

“She’ll be the best. She’ll make it big and earn lots of money,” I said. “All the work and love I put into her won’t have been for nothing. She’s going to be someone. She’s going to be famous!”

“She’s already famous,” said John.

He was right. Though I normally noticed things right away, I’d missed the fact that my Aminat had become famous. I guess I’d been talking too much with Sulfia. Everyone was talking about Aminat. The papers wrote contradictory things about her. She couldn’t have grown up in Kazan and Sverdlovsk simultaneously. She couldn’t be both fluent in Tartar and not speak a word of it. She couldn’t possibly be a virgin, have AIDS, and be pregnant. It was obvious from all the lies — Aminat was a star.

I discovered that I missed Aminat. I thought I’d gotten used to her absence, that it didn’t hurt anymore, that I was doing well. Until, that is, I realized I couldn’t stand being without her. On the one hand I could see her round the clock. I saw her constantly on TV and had bought magazines with posters of her in them. I’d bought a compilation CD of her and the other competitors on the show. That was even before she won. Her song was being played all over the radio.

“I want to see her,” I said to John. “I want to see her before I die.”

I also realized that all the requests I would earlier have held God responsible for I now put to John. Whether I wanted something big or small, I simply turned to John. It was uncomplicated and had quick results. Unlike God, John had yet to misunderstand anything. I also didn’t have to constantly apologize to John or promise him anything in return the way I always felt obligated to do with God. It made things easier.

“I have to see her,” I said to John.

He nodded.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if an hour later the doorbell rang and Aminat was standing there in the sequined dress from her last show with a bouquet of flowers in her hand for her beloved grandmother. But nothing happened. Not that day or the next. She didn’t call. And John just trimmed the roses in front of the house. I didn’t pressure him — he was after all no God.

The phone hardly rang at our place anyway. Sometimes John’s daughter was on the line and sometimes Dieter, for whom I bought groceries and whose apartment I cleaned. He, too, collected newspaper clippings of Aminat and doused them in his tears. He watched the same shows, though he seemed to see something completely different from me. He saw her as a victim of all the media attention.

But then one day the phone rang and there was a young woman’s voice on the line speaking somewhat shyly in broken Russian.

“Aminat!” I cried, hardly able to believe it was her. “Aminat, has your polished Tartar completely displaced your Russian?”

“I’m not Aminat,” said the girl. “I’m Lena.”

Lena. Who was Lena again, I asked myself, but then hit upon the answer. I remembered it like it was yesterday — the ugly, chubby-cheeked baby, Sulfia’s daughter with Rosenbaum. Lena! The one who’d been kidnapped and taken to Israel by Rosenbaum, breaking Sulfia’s heart. That Lena was on the line now. She’d probably heard that Aminat was a star and wanted money. I decided to play dumb.

Lena had called Dieter — Rosenbaum had that old number — and Dieter had given her my new number. She said she was coming to Germany and, if possible, hoped to get to know her sister and her mother — the whole family. Lena didn’t even know that Sulfia accompanied me in an urn now, and she acted as if she had no idea about Aminat’s success. I acted as if I believed her.

“How’s your grandmother?” I asked, assuming that not only the grandmother but both old Rosenbaums were long since dead.

“Very well, thanks,” Lena answered cheerfully.

On the day Lena’s plane landed, I had a migraine. John drove to the airport in his sand-colored Mercedes. I gave him Lena’s mobile number and described her to him, at least the way I remembered her: big head, short legs, small eyes, fuzzy hair.

John nodded and drove off.

Less than two hours later, he was back. He carried a little rolling suitcase into the house. Then he stepped to the side to let the girl behind him through the door. I was stunned. Before me stood Sulfia incarnate, an eighteen-year-old Sulfia in flesh and blood, slightly stooped and with a shy smile. This Sulfia had brown hair and light brown eyes — the copy had somewhat different coloration, but the rest was a perfect facsimile. She even dressed like Sulfia — the loose jeans created the suspicion that the person in them was overweight in the most inopportune places. She had on a dark-blue t-shirt with writing on it I couldn’t read, and not a single piece of jewelry beyond her gold earrings. Neither John nor Lena understood why I was frozen in place. Then Lena wrapped her arms around me. She was apparently a very impulsive girl.

I sat down on the sofa while John showed Lena around the house. They chatted away chirpily in English, which I couldn’t understand. I decided I needed to ask John to teach me. It bothered me that Lena could speak it and I couldn’t. I also wanted to speak English with John.

They came back to the living room and Lena kneeled in front of me and said with a shy smile, “And where is mama?”

She wasn’t a baby anymore, and I didn’t like her smile. Others might say it was charming, but I refused. I stood up and gestured with a wave of my hand that she should follow me. Lena traipsed happily along behind me as I led her into my bedroom. I took her by the shoulder (she was shorter than me, just like Sulfia), pointed to the urn, and, relishing this moment, said, “In there.”

At first she didn’t understand. Then she approached the urn and read the golden lettering on the marble — the name and date. Her lips began to quiver and she turned to me.

“Why didn’t anyone tell us?”

“Because none of you would have given a shit,” I said.

I was happy that John decided to take care of Lena. He gave her a tour of the area, driving her around in his Mercedes. She had evidently coped well with the urn incident and squealed happily around the house. She was thrilled by how clean and green everything was in Germany. She had brought Russian books for me, and a poppyseed cake from a Tel Aviv bakery. She was a somewhat different Sulfia, lighthearted, with a gleam in her eyes. She was almost always in a good mood and she didn’t get upset about things or hold grudges. She asked me a thousand questions about me and her mother. But I didn’t feel like answering. John didn’t know anything about our history so luckily he couldn’t help her, either.