The Mountain and the Wall (14 page)

Had he dreamed it all?

Shamil poked the sleeping Arip, and when he saw his startled face, burst out laughing.

“You too, Arip? We fell asleep!”

“
Le,
he must have carried us back out here,” mumbled Arip, shaking the beetle off his T-shirt.

“Who?”

“The old man from the village. He made up a place for us to sleep, and then in the middle of the night he picked us up and carried us outside. That’s not the kind of hospitality you expect in the mountains.”

Shamil frowned. “So you also remember how we went up into to the village, and how big and well fortified it was?”

“Yes, we went up into the village, and there was no one there, and we went into someone’s house.”

“Wait, he invited us, what was his name…he wasn’t an old man, around fifty or so…”

“No one invited us. We went into some house on our own. It was empty, but there was a fire smoldering in the hearth. The hearth was old-fashioned, not modern. And then that…what was his name…showed up.”

Shamil and Arip looked at each other in silence.

“Let’s check,” began Shamil, but he broke off before finishing his thought. The imposing crest of the mountain, which had served as
the village’s primary defense, was completely bare. No towers—no ruins, even.

“Well, I guess we did fall asleep!” he exclaimed, looping around the mountainside, looking up.

Panting, they climbed to the peak, but there was no sign of any settlement. Arip got out his cellphone and showed Shamil the date and time.

“If we slept, then we slept out here all night and all morning too, and didn’t even feel the cold.”

They remained silent on the way back until they saw the river and the bend beyond which the rafts with the tourists had disappeared. Then they walked a couple more kilometers and finally reached the road.

Shamil had forgotten this incident and had recalled it only now, in the gym. Even more than it had at the time, the entire episode now felt like nothing more than a dream.

10

It was late when they finished their workout and went outside; night had fallen. Nariman got out the car’s key remote and clicked open the lock. A black Priora parked by the stadium flickered its headlights and beeped three times. Shamil got in front, and little Arsen sat in the back seat.

“Arsenchik, how are things at the uni?” asked Shamil, watching the darkness speed by in the tinted side mirror.

“Greased the skids as usual. Really warmed up the profs. Basically used up all my money, so by the time I went in for the last exam, I was completely broke…Didn’t feel like coughing up any more cash. I thought, my dad and Isaev, my prof, are best buddies—they’ll work
it out without any capital exchanging hands. But Isaev turned out to be a real jerk. Can’t get anything done without throwing some kopecks around.”

“What about the ladies, any luck on that front?”

“There’s this one piece…” Arsen noted with some satisfaction.

Nariman slapped the wheel and guffawed: “You’re lying! No chance! Nothing’s shaking at all. One time he picked up this slut in Reduktorny,” he said, then turned to Shamil to explain:

“Our genius here managed to get her phone number; she lured him to cafés a couple of times, really ran up a tab, then she replaced her SIM card, and that was the last he saw of her!”

“Bullshit.” Arsen was flustered, “Want me to call her right now?”

“Go ahead!” Nariman laughed and jerked the wheel back and forth, swerving all over the road. The car began to shake.

“What the hell?” yelped Shamil.

“They’re putting up a shopping center; it’s a big deal, will have an escalator and everything. It’s Crazy Maga’s thing.”

“Maga the deputy?”

“Who else?”

Nariman lowered the window, poked his head out, and yelled to someone at the top of his voice: “
Le, saul
, Rashik, Rashik! What’s up?! What’s with the suit? Hey, how about you lend me your tie?”

Shamil tried to see who was being addressed, but Nariman had already left his target behind.

“So what’s going on with you and your girl?” he asked Shamil, with a sly look.

“It’s over.”

“On account of the wedding?”

“I got tired of her,” answered Shamil, leaning back. “I can give you
her address, she lives near the Central Mall.”

“I’m on to her, the guys briefed me. Anyway, she’s with Gazik now.”

“Is she putting out?” asked Shamil indifferently.

“And how! Gazik’s already shot an entire series of dirty videos with her on his cell.”

“So have you heard about the Wall?”

“What Wall?” asked Arsen.

“A wall, as in an actual wall. Border troops are building it in Stavropol, supposedly, to cut us off from Russia.”

Nariman guffawed again. “What, Shoma, are you out of your mind?”

“I’m telling you, that’s the word on the street,” said Shamil.

“Wait, Nariman, stop!” Arsen hissed suddenly. He rolled down his window and leaned out excitedly.

“What’s up?”

“Look, over by the movie theater.”

Shamil lowered his window too, and saw the silhouettes of two women moving briskly along the dimly lit avenue. A large crowd trailed behind them, picking up loiterers along the way. Cars honked and braked. Nariman wheeled around and joined the procession.

“Hey, girls, hop in, we’ll give you a lift!” came from all sides.

One of the girls was very tall, with a mass of curly yellow hair. She wore a kind of sarafan that was waving in the breeze. The other was a short brunette in tight jeans with a famous brand name embroidered in rhinestones on the back pocket. They walked without looking around, clicking their heels loudly on the sidewalk. Nariman and Arsen joined the chase, beeping enthusiastically and calling out invitations to the girls.

Shamil observed these goings on complacently.

Soon some of the drivers gave up; the crowd of pedestrians
following the girls thinned out, but the two of them kept creeping along the avenue, which led inexorably into unilluminated wasteland.

“I like the one with the curly hair,” said Nariman. He fumbled around in his CDs and put on a popular foreign song.

“They’ve stopped!” shouted Arsen.

The girls had indeed stopped and were standing on the side of the street, shifting helplessly from one foot to another.

“There’s some mud over there,” noted Shamil, trying to see the sidewalk in the darkness.

Nariman poked his head out the window: “Honestly, girls, we’re not going to do anything, we’ll just take you home,” he reassured them. “Someone’s going to pick you up no matter what, you know.”

“No they’re not!” shouted the brunette.

“I’ll be right back,” whispered Nariman to his passengers. He got out of the car and walked up to the girls.

“I bet he’ll talk them into it,” snickered Arsen from the back seat.

They could see Nariman talking and gesticulating; the girls kept turning away. Finally he held out his hand to the one with the curly hair, and she took it after another moment’s hesitation. He led her across the mud, skipping over the deeper puddles, then went back to the brunette and helped her over to where her friend was waiting.

“Shamil, turn the music down, what’s he saying?” said Arsen.

Shamil ignored him. “What difference does it make?” he asked listlessly.

Nariman was pointing to the car and talking energetically, explaining something to the girls, who were laughing now. Finally the three of them headed toward the Priora.

“Nariman, what a player,” whistled Arsen, impressed.

While everyone got settled in the car, Shamil turned down the music and adjusted the front mirror so he could get a better look at the girls.
The tall one’s curly hair was bleached, and her features seemed just a bit too large for her face. The brunette was nice looking, but too young.

“Let’s get acquainted: I’m Shamil, this is Nariman, and this is Arsen,” he began.

“We’ve already met Nariman,” giggled the girls.

“What’re your names?” asked Arsen ingratiatingly.

The girls exchanged glances and the curly haired one paused, then answered, “I’m Amina, and she’s Zaira.”

“What’s your ethnicity?” asked Shamil.

“We’re Avars.”

“Where are you from?” asked Shamil.

“Soviet District.”

“Both of you?”

The girls giggled again.

“
Mar’arul mats’ l’alebish
?”
*
Shamil asked.

“We don’t,” answered Zaira, “All I know is ‘
Kvanaze rach’a.
’”
†

“
Le,
you’re a sly one, Shamil,” Arsen broke in, “you won’t let anyone get a word in edgewise.”

“I’m just curious. It’s almost midnight, and here are these beautiful girls out on the streets all by themselves. Where were you headed?” grinned Shamil.

“We were at the movies,” Amina said, adjusting her hair as she justified herself. “We didn’t realize that the movie was going to go on so long. It started at 7:30 and lasted four hours, what a nightmare.”

“We followed you all the way from the theater,” Nariman pointed out.

“Why?”

“Well, we took a real liking to you.”

“To tell the truth, there’s only one thing we didn’t like.” Shamil said, smirking.

The girls were clearly curious. “What’s that?”

“You got in the car with us.”

“Cut it out, Shoma!” Nariman waved his hand in Shamil’s face.

The girls snorted: “It never changes; you’re all the same! We’re bad if we don’t get in, but if we do, we’re even worse.”

“He was just joking,” Arsen said, hoping to calm them down. “How about we take you to Tarki-Tau?”

“No, take us right home, please,” Amina said firmly. “To Uzbek Gorodok.”

“Sure, no problem,” Nariman smiled. “But tell us about yourselves in the meantime. Where do you go to school, what do you do? You first, Amina.”

“I’m from Khas.”

“You go to school around here, is that it?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“What the hell?” Nariman was getting irritated. “We’re having a perfectly pleasant, normal conversation here.”

“She goes to Pedagogical,” Zaira gave the game away. “Anyway, we’re almost home. Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Where should we stop?” asked Nariman.

The girls whispered to each other and finally pointed to a corner of a five-story brick building looming up at the end of an alley.

Nariman didn’t believe them. “Is this really where you live? Seems to me we got here a little too fast.”

“Yes, of course, thank you very much.”

They stopped, but no one was ready to call it a night.

“Looks like they’re not waiting up for you,” noted Shamil, “or else
you wouldn’t be out so late.”

“It’s not actually where we live. It’s our aunt’s apartment. We’re staying at her place while she’s in the hospital,” said Zaira.

“So let’s drive around some, we’re not weirdos or anything,” said Nariman.

“We’ll just go downtown, do some donuts,” added Arsen.

The girls held another whispered consultation, then Amina said, “All right, but just a quick trip.”

They wheeled around, merged onto the avenue, and sped back the way they’d come, toward the streetlights and sparse neon signs.

“Narik, take it up to two hundred, I’ll take a picture with my phone,” Arsen suggested gleefully.

Nariman floored it, as if he’d been waiting for the invitation. The girls squealed.

“Too fast!”

Someone turned the music up. Tires squealing, they turned onto the main street and sped toward the center of town, dodging and weaving around the other cars on the road. The speedometer needle strained and hovered at maximum. More squealing. Arsen rolled down his window, and the girls’ hair whipped him in the face. Shamil languidly watched the streets as they looped around to the pulsing rhythm of the song, the whistling of the wind, and the joyful cries of his fellow passengers.

“I’m going to take the picture!” howled Arsen, holding his phone in his outstretched hand.

“Hey, are you getting any service on that?” the girls asked him.

“No one’s got any these days,” answered Arsen, and then, shoving his entire torso out the window, he roared:

“
Ai saul
!”

Someone on the street yelled back.

“Let’s hit the square!” proposed Nariman. He was really getting into it.

“What do you mean? It’s closed off,” said Shamil.

“I’ve got a pass,” bragged Nariman.

“Wow, you can get onto the square?” simpered the girls.

“Just turn down the music some,” Shamil said blandly.

A grim-looking sergeant inspected the ID that Nariman held out the window, scrutinized his face, and, to Shamil’s surprise, lifted the barrier. The Priora shrieked and leaped onto the broad, completely empty square. The girls gasped. Arsen laughed. Nariman grinned proudly, braked in the middle of the square and started wheeling the car around its axis. The girls shrieked again.