It was the beginning of fall, and the whole town was abuzz with talk of the baiga planned for Independence Day. The country was up to its ears in crisis, and new words like “inflation,” “hyperinflation,” and “liberalization” had made it all the way to the village of Dolan. Prices were rising so quickly that price tags kept having to be readjusted on the fly. Auntie Tolganay, the next-door neighbor, was staring bewildered at her extremely late paycheck, which now, because of inflation, was just enough to purchase a couple loaves of bread.
Marjan’s father, Seit, tried to cheer Tolganay up. “Get used to it, neighbor,” he said. “That’s just how it is now. It’s called capitalism.”
But—despite the chaos—people were enthusiastic about the baiga. After all, the winning stallion would score its owner a Korean color television set! Second and third place awards would also be given out, and even the jockeys were promised some decent prizes, not to mention the free refreshments.
At dinner Marjan floated the idea that she might have liked to race herself, if only Uncle Ayan, Tolganay’s husband, would let her ride Sardar, but her mother shot her such a look of disgust that she promptly let it go.
“Marjan, that horse is too young to race anyway,” said her father. “In my day, horses had to be at least three. And twenty-one kilometers bareback. I don’t think so.”
“That’s right. Don’t even think about it,” grunted her mother under her breath. “You’re a girl.”
“Exactly,” said Seit with a laugh. “Let the fellas get their backsides all chafed up. It’s not for you. Come on, why don’t you pour your father some tea instead?”
So that was how it was going to be. Maybe she was hoping against hope, but there was always still a drop of hope. Not anymore. Fingers stiff, Marjan picked up the piyala—and abruptly dropped it.
“And she wants to ride a horse!” remarked her mother. “She can’t even hold a cup of tea without dropping it!”
The next day, the boys cantered past the house whooping—and Marjan’s heart sank when she saw Dias sitting atop Sardar. They were getting in shape for the race, and they looked so pleased with themselves. All Marjan could do was stand at the gate and watch them with envious eyes.
That same day, the neighbor brought over a kitten, the only one she hadn’t drowned in a tub of water—it had managed to escape, the sly little fox. She dropped it off with the girls. Their mother didn’t mind; cats were pretty well indispensable in the village. Marjan named the little guy Conan. A few days earlier they’d gone to the video club, where they were screening Conan the Barbarian with Arnold Schwarzenegger—and wow, everyone was blown away!
The kitten was perky and latched onto the girls—it scared the youngest sister a bit, but on the whole it adjusted pretty well.
That evening in the banya, while Marjan was bathing the girls, she overheard her father speaking to some men in the yard. They were blaspheming the government, the Soviet Union, the new country, then eventually moved on to the topic of the baiga. Ayan was apparently gunning for first place—but yeah right! Sardar may have been a good stallion, but he was still young, and at the end of the day, he wasn’t a thoroughbred. And there were going to be Arabians and Akhal-Tekes there. The mongrel Sardar didn’t stand a chance against horses like that. Someone joked that Sardar was the purest of purebreds from the administrative center of Kostanay. After which they got into a debate over what constitutes a “pure” breed.
Marjan toweled the girls dry, grabbed the little one’s hand, and took her into the house. When she returned for Tutu, she saw that Uncle Ayan, looking disturbed, had joined the assemblage of men in the yard. News traveled fast: Dias had fallen off his horse and broken his collarbone. They had to take him to the regional hospital in town, but there was no x-ray machine there, so they continued on to the city.
The emotions that came over Marjan when she heard what was supposed to be sad news scared her, and not a little. She snatched Tutu by the hand and swiftly dragged her into the house so no one would see her face. As she was getting Tutu dressed for bed, she chuckled quietly and a little maliciously, and kept laughing until finally she burst into tears. The sisters smiled at first when they saw her laugh, but then they too started crying—first the little one, then Tutu joined in; something about their older sister’s face, her trembling body, her blubbering laughter scared them to death. Marjan impulsively covered her face with her hands and slammed her body into the wall, then did it a few more times.
She took her hands away from her face. The little one was still whimpering, and Tutu’s eyes were bulging at her. Marjan quietly said, “I’m going to be a jockey. Is that clear, you silly birds?”
And that was precisely how things played out. Now that Dias had gotten himself injured, people weren’t exactly lining up to ride Sardar, and Uncle Ayan, after first making the rounds in all the neighboring villages, finally paid the Kanafin family a visit with his tail between his legs.
Marjan’s mother yelled, “Just what we needed. Now you want my daughter to break her neck too?” But in her gut, Marjan wasn’t worried. The day before, her mother had offhandedly asked her father what prizes the jockeys could win, and he replied that the organizers were giving out schoolbags with a year’s worth of school supplies. There’d be other prizes too, but that depended on the horses’ owners. Uncle Ayan’s generosity was not in question. After a heated argument, they finally called Marjan in. She appeared with ostentatious nonchalance, clutching little Conan to her chest.
“One condition,” said her father. “You are going to win. If not, don’t bother coming home.”
“And your precious Sardar will be sold off for meat,” added her mother menacingly. “Understood?”
Little Conan opened his eyes wide and let out a croaky meow. Marjan realized she was squeezing him too hard and, with a start, loosened her grip. The kitten meowed indignantly. “Understood,” she replied.
When he saw her coming, Sardar dipped his head a few times and stomped his hooves, then snorted and winked at her. “Hello there, friend,” he said. “Long time no see.”
They began training. Uncle Ayan ran the exercises himself, and Marjan, the only girl in the group, was docile and compliant. Riding without a saddle proved easier than she’d expected. She felt the horse as an extension of herself. They even breathed in unison. That was why she was a bit taken aback when Uncle Ayan tucked a sheet of foam, folded four times, under her bottom. “What for?” she asked.
“You’ll thank me later.” He smiled.
The first time they drove out to the steppe, and Sardar trotted, a roar like she’d never made before exploded out of Marjan’s mouth, and she laughed. The boys were huffing and puffing nearby. One of them joked that it was easier for Marjan because she was a girl. Everyone cracked up; Marjan turned red.
Sardar said, “Forget them, they’re just ashamed.”
She realized she hadn’t heard his voice in forever, and she nearly choked in joy. “Are we going to win?” she asked, leaning forward. “Mama will kill me if we don’t.”
“I’ll do my best. As for you, know yourself, hold on tight, and just keep whispering in my ear!”
That evening, while trying not to let on how sore her bottom was, she told her little sisters all about how they raced like mad across the steppe—the proud Sardar from Kostanay and his petite rider, leaving their trainer in the dust, shouting in fear, and a gang of boys clenching their jaws with envy and anger. How Sardar laughed, rejoiced! How the wind whistled through their hair, how the smell of grass lodged itself in their noses, how they moved in perfect concert—stallion and rider were made for each other, the miniature girl with her tight ponytail and the bay-colored good-looker.
The day before the baiga, something terrible happened. Conan disappeared. Marjan ran looking for him, and while she was out, Tutu tripped and cut a gash in her brow. Their mother, thundering against everything under the sun, sat her two screaming children in the neighbor’s car, and drove to the hospital. Marjan returned just in time to watch the rear of the green Moskvitch picking up speed.
“I’m doomed,” she thought sadly, as she sat next door listening to Auntie tell the story. Auntie Tolganay had called her over for tea, generously spread some butter on a piece of bread, and poured some honey on top, but Marjan had no appetite at all. She knew she should have been worrying about Tutu, not herself. Tutu had fallen and now they were going to stitch up her forehead. Her mother’s ice-cold hands would be holding her while they did it, when she, Marjan, should have been the one doing it.
Marjan burst into tears on the spot. The upcoming baiga was now the furthest thing from her mind. There would be no training today, since they had already taken the horses to the district center. Marjan and the boys would go early the next morning. If she went at all, obviously.
“How’s school?” asked Tolganay.
School was fine. Studying came easy for Marjan. She usually finished her homework in half an hour. The only hiccup was that she was supposed to make a collage, but her mother had forgotten to buy colored paper. So she used pencils to color some paper herself and made the collage with that, but her apay didn’t like it, so she got a satisfactory.
Tolganay humphed and said, “What a fool she is, your apay, and I’ll say that to her face next time I see her. She always has been a fool, probably always will be.”
At this, Marjan was alarmed—she hadn’t intended for her neighbor to get into it with her teacher. She’d completely forgotten that Auntie Tolganay and her apay had once been classmates. They were the kind of friends who were constantly falling out and making up as if nothing had happened.
“Don’t you pay attention to her. She has the brains of a chicken. You’re the smart one in our village, honestly maybe even in the whole district.”
The flattery was rather encouraging, and Marjan swallowed a couple bites of her sweet butter-bread.
“Anyway—about tomorrow—are you ready?” Tolganay’s question sounded strangely cautious.
“Tomorrow?” She hadn’t even put it together. Tomorrow had somehow flown out of her head. She looked out the window with dread; were Mama and her sisters almost home?
Her neighbor knowingly muttered, “It’s still early. They won’t be back for a couple hours. Well? Are you ready?”
Marjan shrugged. She honestly didn’t know. Her training didn’t actually feel like training at all, more like just plain old fun. So much fun that she didn’t even have the words to describe it. But her time with Sardar—no matter what they did, whether feeding, lazily chatting as she led him by the bridle, galloping—it was the best time of her short life up to that point. Just as soon as she came in contact with her trusty steed, it was as if everything else melted away into the back of her mind—even her run-ins with her mother; even her cold, indifferent father; but most importantly of all, even her sister Aidana, whose absence she felt almost bodily. When she got home after a ride, Marjan’s mind was blank. Blank like someone had sucked out her beehive of a brain and swapped it out for a clean, unblemished new one. But real life gradually came crashing back. Her mother’s barking: put that away, clean that up, stay out of my way; her father’s deafening silence; Tutu’s repressed giggling; the little one’s constant whimpering.
Despite school and training, there was no letting up when it came to Marjan’s house chores. After dinner, her mother left the dirty dishes in the sink for her to do—Seit did not like this one bit, and his anger flared up at his wife more than once. Bathing her younger sisters was also partially Marjan’s responsibility, and she was expected to help with the wash and the housecleaning.
After tucking in Tutu, Marjan was often first to sleep; Tutu would lie beside her, trying not to awaken her. And in recent days, Conan had taken to sleeping with them, too. Upon waking up one morning, Marjan discovered the kitten snuffling loudly right beside her head; either he’d made himself comfortable on his own, or Tutu had curled him up into a ball and placed him there to make her feel good; either way it made Marjan happy.
“Tiny little thing, and it snores like a pair of grown muzhiks,” said her mother, with her own brand of offhand spite. “It must have some sort of problem with its nose.”
When her mother wasn’t looking, Marjan gently raised Conan off the floor and inspected his nose. A clean, pink nose. In all respects, an ideal nose.
“There’ll be a lot of horses there,” said Auntie Tolganay, “but your Sardar is the most beautiful of them all.”
“And the fastest,” replied Marjan.
Tolganay took a good long, contemplative look at her. “Marjan, I want you to listen to me. He’s the fastest horse here, fastest of our horses. But there’s going to be horses there from the whole district. You do know that, don’t you?”
Marjan nodded.
“So you know it doesn’t matter whether or not you two win. The important thing is that you participated. Okay?”
Marjan nodded again. So that was the point, huh?
“Men only care about winning. That’s their world. Being better, stronger, faster. But we women can take things a little looser. And just be happy we get to take part.”
Marjan gave Auntie a questioning look. She still didn’t quite understand exactly what she was insinuating.
“No matter what happens, you’ve done a fantastic job. All by yourself with the boys like that. You’re a brave girl, but I’ll tell you what. Keep your eyes and ears open. They can be very devious.”
“Who?” Marjan still hadn’t caught on.
“Men. Boys. Your competition.”
“But what can they possibly do?”
“Oh, I don’t know, all sorts of things. Just be vigilant.”
After this strange conversation, Auntie Tolganay gave Marjan a present, a baby-blue neckerchief with a white border. It was just the prettiest thing Marjan had ever seen.
“You’ll wear it over your face, otherwise you’ll get dust in your mouth. And another thing. Will you wave at me when you cross the finish line?”
“What? Does that mean you’re going to be there?”
“No, of course not,” she laughed. “Just wave hello to me anyways. Like this.” And she gestured as if she was reaching up to pick a star out of the sky. Marjan mimicked her, and they laughed.
Marjan headed home with her new neckerchief. Her mother and sisters weren’t home yet. She puttered aimlessly around the backyard, waiting; she remembered she never found Conan. Maybe he came back and was sleeping in front of the house, in his little “bedroom” that Tutu had built for him right under the currant bush. She’d spread out a sheet of velvet and set some cat furniture on top, along with a few rudimentary toys, like a rock lacquered with nail polish, an old naked baby doll, and a pretty feather.
But there was no cat to be seen anywhere in the front yard. Marjan looked under all the bushes and called to him—ks, ks, ks. She called out his name too, but it was futile. She stood back up, even checked to see if he was up in the apple tree—what if he’d climbed up there and had lost his voice?
She shuddered. There he was. Hanging from a branch. A shoelace around his thin neck. Tiny mouth open in a silent scream. Marjan felt a cold sweat come over her. She took a step back, stumbled, and nearly fell. For a couple minutes, she felt suspended in a strange dimension between the sky and the earth. Then she sprang into action. She had to do something before Tutu and her mother saw.
She brought a pair of scissors and a large spoon out from the house, climbed up the tree, doing her best not to look at the dead kitten, and cut the shoelace. He fell with an unexpected splat. Marjan slid down from the tree, taking no notice of her scratched-up hands, shoveled out a hole with her spoon, not too close to Conan’s “bedroom,” tucked the body in snugly, and, eyes looking side to side, hastily filled it in with dirt.
It was thus that her mother and little sisters found her when they returned from the emergency room—dirty spoon in hand. Her mother did not yell at her when she saw, but as usual, pawned off the little one on her, then went inside with Tutu in her arms—with a gigantic bandage splayed across Tutu’s forehead.
The big day began, a haze in Marjan’s mind. Early in the morning, her mother tried to force her to get down some wheat kasha with raisins, but Marjan couldn’t do it and waved her away. They then drove an eternity in Uncle Ayan’s car with some other villagers. In the back seat, Ayan’s son Isatay was being jumpy the whole time and made no attempt to conceal his excitement: “Marjavanesku, Marjavanesku, can you believe it, we’re gonna get a tv if Sardar wins!”
When Sardar was brought over to her, the horse dipped his head, and Marjan hugged him. “They killed Conan,” she whispered. “And Tutu fell and cracked her head.”
Sardar snorted quietly.
“Remember what you have to do?” asked Uncle Ayan.
She nodded.
“Stay with the group. Don’t get out in front. Let her rip after the sixth turn—right past the blue flag. Okay?”
She nodded again. Uncle Ayan said something else to her—maybe something about her opponents. The jockeys—almost all boys—were absorbed in their own thoughts and didn’t look around much.
Some sort of thickset old guy with an enormous belly, wearing a suit and a tubeteika on his head, was shouting into a megaphone. Marjan could only catch snippets of what he was saying: “traditional race of the Turkic peoples—cross-country—bareback and at maximum speed—returning to our roots—we are nomads—the first time on our land—according to the traditions of our people—in honor of our independence—we Kazakhs were born to ride—excellent prizes—but first place—as our wise aqsaqals say—and now, it’s time to begin—Godspeed!”
“Ready?” asked Sardar with a wink. “Hold on tight, I’ve got the earth under my hooves! Hold on tight, princess!”
And off they went.
It struck her that only now, mid-race, did she become conscious of what was going on around her. She saw the other horses—the ample-rumped and wide-backed Katyusha, named after the eponymous rocket launcher; the bay stallion Che Guevara, with the star on his brow; the English thoroughbred mare Virginia (word was that her owner was an English-literature enthusiast). The jockey couldn’t pronounce Virginia, so he called her Pizhiné, with the accent on the last syllable.
Adilkhan, a boy from her village riding a black stallion named Tarlan, fell behind, as did another boy from a neighboring village riding a stallion known as Barkhat. Sardar and Marjan were surrounded for the most part by horses they’d never seen before. Galloping beside her, and biting his lip, was a boy with a shaved head with a long braided lock in the center, a traditional hairstyle on the Eurasian steppe called an aydar. He wore nothing on his head and had no scarf to cover his face. The skin of his round head was an even brown, and his eyes were thin—he looked rather like Genghis Khan as a boy. Another jockey was riding a long-legged Kostanay. He was wearing a bright-violet tracksuit and the quirky way he tied his black kerchief gave him a raffish air.
Marjan’s hair was tied in a tight ponytail to keep it out of the way. Her face was protected with her neighbor’s present, the kerchief—oh, and a good thing it was, given how much dust was raised by the horses. She became conscious of details, the garments that the jockeys wore, the colors, the headgear, and the sounds. The ground rumbled with the thunder of hooves, the wind whistled in her ears, the far-off tumult of the crowds also reached her ears, the blare of car horns, someone’s voice shouting into a megaphone.
“Still alive, huh?” laughed Sardar. “I was starting to think we’d lost you.”
“I’ve been right here all along,” replied Marjan with dignity. “It’s just—I’m a little—well—”
“Don’t think about the cat. People can be cruel.”
Marjan thought over his words. Could it have been—who could have done such a thing? Poor Conan. Surely it couldn’t have been Isatay? Probably not—he seemed so perky in the car earlier, kept trying to pull Marjan into a conversation. And anyway, he was usually such a good-natured person who liked to joke around. When they were kids he used to defend Marjan, and one time he’d beaten back an angry goose that tried to attack her. No, it definitely couldn’t have been him. Now, Adilkhan, on the other hand—it wouldn’t have surprised her one bit. That one liked getting under her skin, and if not for the fact that he was scared of Uncle Ayan, he might easily have smacked her once or twice. One time when they were coming home, he tripped her on purpose and pretended he didn’t mean to. That jerk. On the other hand, Adilkhan had a lot of animals at home. She remembered how he bawled his eyes out in first grade because his mother had slaughtered his favorite rooster for dinner. Maybe it was Dias. Dias, who had broken his collarbone when he fell off Sardar. But Marjan didn’t remember seeing Dias anywhere near the house. She had only ever spoken to him, at most, a few times in her whole life. He was a year ahead of her in school, so he was in a different building, and they scarcely saw each other.
I’ll find him and kill him, thought Marjan. At the same time, she noticed the violet tracksuit dangerously close to her and nudged Sardar a bit to the left.
“Let me loose,” said the horse. “It’s time!”
“It’s still early,” she answered, holding the reins steady. She felt his suppressed energy coursing from his head through his body to his strong legs hammering the ground; she felt it flying up in waves, swathing her in its heat, making the thin hairs on her arms and on the back of her neck stand on end; she felt as if those hairs would release sparks of electricity. She kept her mouth closed, fearing razor-sharp licks of flame would explode from it. It wasn’t her heart beating in her chest, or her blood coursing through her veins. It was Sardar’s. His blood. His heart. His wild energy.
The bald boy with the pigtail took a peep at them. There was the jockey riding the long-legged Kostanay. His black kerchief slipped off his head and flew in her direction, and his long black hair broke free in the wind, like a woman’s hair. From in front of them, Marjan and Sardar got a powerful whiff of sweat; from behind, frantic and loud, hot breathing.
“Let me loose,” asked the horse once again.
“Still early.”
She heard whooping rather like Mamluks before a battle on the steppe. The dust reached up to the sky. The heat was scorching, but they didn’t feel it. Her body was covered with an invisible cold film. The boy with the pigtail and the boy in violet turned back, nearly simultaneously, to see how far ahead they’d peeled away from the crowd. Violet deftly pulled up the kerchief that had dropped from his face.
“Let me loose.” Sardar inched forward.
Marjan could hear ferocious breathing around her. The air was boiling blood. The energy of the riders to her left and right became palpable—desire, fury, malice, thrill, and who knew what else.
“Let me loose!” Sardar was nearly screaming now.
Marjan bent down toward the horse. Her fingers grazed his coarse mane. She saw his ears pressed to his head. “Almost,” she whispered. “As soon as we pass the blue flag. Don’t rush it. We have time.”
Finally, she released him. She felt behind them a wave of disappointment. The soundless rage of the other riders was tangible. It was an exertion to keep her body slack to avoid making Sardar do more work. “Run,” she whispered. “Come on.”
At first, he seemed to be holding back deliberately. Was he testing her? But she didn’t bat an eye. “Let’s go! Do it!” He began to pick up speed, tore ahead, barely touching the ground, flying, exultant scream—take a good look! Look at me!
“Happy now?” he asked.
“Never happier!” she yelled.
“Well, then hold on tight!”
They drew close behind violet tracksuit. He looked back once again, leaned even further down, spurred his horse faster, but fat chance! For a while, they ran neck and neck, but she knew Sardar was just toying with them now, playing the crowd for an ego boost. They began inching ahead, one drop at a time, a violet blur, a distorted face; she couldn’t help but be pleased that her own face was covered up to her eyes. A bay mare raced frantically, her knotted tail flailing in unison with her rider’s pigtail. Marjan saw her heaving flank. The horse was visibly tired, but her rider was full of raging energy.
“Hold on!”
They passed the mare. Maximum speed. Marjan did not look around. Her eyes were glued to the front. The dust seemed to clear, and she noticed for the first time the postcard-blue sky and yellow steppe. She felt like laughing—not allowed. She felt like howling—also no.
Sardar was silent too. Rather than his low, slightly wry voice, she heard only his heart pumping, his hooves beating against the ground. Nearing the finish line, she turned back all the same. In the distance, a cloud of dust hurtling at her; further behind, a second cloud; and way in back, a massive cloud of all the rest. Marjan remembered that she’d promised her neighbor she’d wave at her, and she raised her right hand in a fist. She hadn’t even registered how the reins had scratched up her hands, and her palms were tingling now. With her fist in the air, she flew, gripping the reins with only her left hand. Of its own volition, her hand was pulled to her face, and she lowered the kerchief to her neck. She breathed deeply of the delicious steppe air.
The crowd roared, exhilaration. Some whistled, some clapped, and a man yelled something into the megaphone.
It was over. An eternity had gone by in half an hour. Marjan dragged herself back to reality. She caught a glimpse of Lyuty, Uncle Ayan’s shaggy-headed horse, so named because of its nasty temper as a colt. She heard Sardar’s breathing and leaned down to him. She kissed his hot mane, aromatic with sweat.
_____
The winter of 1993 was cold as ice. School was closed more than once, and it was so cold inside the classrooms that students had to wear hats and mittens. Money disappeared; people said there was not enough paper currency to go around. Seit had to slaughter the mare for sogym, so they would have enough meat through the winter. Marjan’s mother nearly let her have it for daring to cry, but thought better of it.
They exchanged some of the meat for other essential goods. Word was that things were even worse further out from the city. There was no money, no one grew food at home, and everyone had to install wood-burning stoves to keep warm.
The situation in Almaty was a bit better. At least they hadn’t had their electricity and gas shut off. Prices skyrocketed, paychecks came months late, and pensions were so meager that they were not enough to cover basic medicines.
A letter came from Aidana right before New Year’s—at least the post office was still running. A professionally made photo was also enclosed in the envelope. Wearing a chic yellow knitted outfit, Aidana was staring into the lens with an awkward smile.
“She’s become a city girl now,” muttered her mother disapprovingly as she made space for the photo in the sideboard, behind the glass.
The letter was written with large letters on a thick sheet of paper, and almost every word was adorned with doodles of flowers or stars. “Dear everyone,” it said, “I hope you are okay. Everything is fine here. I’m in first grade. I got a lot of stars. Also, I do gymnastics. I have a cat. I miss you. Kisses, Dana.”
“Dana?” asked Marjan, confused. “Her name is Dana now?” She folded up the letter and put it under her pillow, because Mama was capable of throwing it out.
They assembled a few things to send to Almaty—meat and butter. In return, they received a box of clothes for the young ones. Even Marjan was able to procure a few items, a navy-blue knit jogging suit with a white pattern on the chest and a windbreaker for spring and fall. Her mother was pleased and kept clicking her tongue while inspecting the clothes. She set aside a few items for the kids. It became clear later that she wanted to sell the rest. She’d thought about selling the windbreaker, but Marjan had latched onto it so quickly that it would have been difficult to do so. When she tried to force Marjan to give it to her, Marjan complained to her father. After a brief shouting match, it was returned to her, and Marjan took it to her neighbors for safekeeping until spring.
Auntie Tolganay and Uncle Ayan, the Duysekovs, surprised the whole village and even made everyone laugh. They placed a sign on their porch that said store, and brought in goods from the city: green and pink bars of soap, juices in many colors in plastic bottles, chocolates, and cookies in pretty packages. Ayan, a skilled artisan, made them something like a bench, and they pilfered a scale and an abacus from an abandoned workshop. At first people just came to browse, but eventually they started buying, too. According to Auntie Tolganay, vodka and cigarettes were the top sellers. Marjan came in sometimes to peek at the goods and chat with the neighbors, hoping she might get a freebie—sometimes they gave out samples of the chocolate or juice, even a piece of gum. One time, Auntie Tolganay gave her a pretty hair tie.
Now, when someone had guests over for a nice meal, a favorite topic of discussion was Tolganay the businesswoman. No one believed her enterprise would succeed—the whole thing seemed to materialize out of thin air. What did she know about running a store? Prices were going up; no one was going to buy. What would she do with the rotten produce? What a fool she was. And she’d even dragged her husband into it; what a good guy he was, and what bad luck, what bad luck.
Marjan felt so bad for the half-cocked Auntie Tolganay. One day she couldn’t help herself. She decided to tell her what people were saying. She ran to the store and found her neighbors making a new sign. They were trying to write tolganay on it with the help of some green paint, arguing all the while about how to fit in all the letters. She seemed so pleased with herself that Marjan had no choice but to keep her mouth shut.
“Did you need something, sweetie?” asked Auntie Tolganay.
“Oh, I just came to take a look,” she replied.
“We have some new cookies. They’re black. Try one.” Auntie Tolganay handed her an open package. They really were ink black.
“Take a couple more for the birdies.” Birdies was what she called the two youngest Kanafin sisters. Marjan said thank you and left in confusion.
Toward spring, talk started up about the Nauryz Festival. Once the snow melted and the first real bit of sun peered out, they’d set up yurts and traditional swings in the district center. There’d be more than enough food to go around, a concert, and of course, more horse races.
Her victory at the district baiga had brought Marjan plenty of glory and respect, although expressions of satisfaction and pride were not tolerated.
“Nice job,” Seit had said to her curtly, but later, at a gathering of friends, after a few drinks too many, he talked up his eldest daughter in front of his friends.
“So what do you say now, Seit? Are you ever going to stop whining about not having any sons?” laughed Tolganay, with a wink to Marjan and the girls.
“You know, it doesn’t take a lot of brains to race a horse,” noted her mother. “Maybe you ought to focus on your chores instead.”
Uncle Ayan, on the other hand, didn’t hold back one bit. He’d hugged Marjan, then spun her around like a child and stuffed a sweaty wad of bills into her pocket. Marjan gave all of it to her parents, and she split the contents of her other winnings, a backpack-full, with her sisters.
When he found out what had happened to Conan, Uncle Ayan, to Marjan’s dismay, brought them a new cat, gray with powder-blue eyes. Thankfully, the little thing proved quite disagreeable—such a hostile and belligerent character she had not yet seen in a cat. He fought with everyone: the family members, the other cats, the puppies; he meowed loudly; could not stand to be picked up; and in the words of her mother, he was “a feral son-of-a-bitch.” Marjan was happy about it. She didn’t have to pretend to like him. They named the cat Basilio.
Marjan still kept an eye on him, as much as she could anyway. But given his aggressive predisposition, premature death after yet another street fight would likely be his fate, so she simply gave up on him. If his days were numbered anyway, what was the point of getting attached?
In April 1993, she and Sardar won yet another twenty-one-kilometer district baiga. Second to the finish line was Dias, riding a mare named Tachanka. He usually came in first when they raced, but that day, in Sardar’s opinion, Dias drove Tachanka too hard during the last three kilometers. Marjan agreed with that assessment.
The prize for first place was another horse—that made Marjan and Sardar laugh. Marjan also won one hundred U.S. dollars. It was the first time she had ever seen that pale green currency, which promptly made its way into her mother’s purse.
Two weeks later, they drove to the regional horse race, where they won third place. Although they didn’t win, everyone wanted a chance to meet the girl rider and her horse. A potbellied Russian guy from the regional newspaper took forever to photograph Marjan and Sardar. As a gift, she was given a few books, a leather bag that could be worn over the shoulder or on her back, and another strange item—a wooden board on wheels, which someone said was called a “skateboard.”
Great news came in May. Their relatives were coming to visit from Almaty. Marjan was so happy she couldn’t sleep, or sit still. Every second she had, she spent rescrubbing the already spotless house. If she couldn’t decorate the house with things, which they simply didn’t have, at least she could decorate it with cleanliness and luster. The conversation she would have with Aidana kept circling in her head—there was so much she wanted to tell her, about the races, about Sardar, about Dias (who shot her disturbing looks when no one was watching), and about the starry-eyed Isatay, who could never stop saying her name a million different ways—Marjan-jan, Marjavanesku, Marjania, Marjanella. And about Conan, and the new cat Basilio, who hated the world (and because of this, a strange complicity developed between Basilio and their mother, who also seemed to hate the whole world). Oh, they had so much to discuss! And of course, Aidana would tell her all about Almaty, the most beautiful city in Kazakhstan, surrounded by mountains—mountains that were so tall, there was never any wind in the city. And she would tell her about the apples, so many of them that they just piled up on the street, and gymnastics, where they were taught how to lift their legs above their ears, and they threw a hoop and did flips while it was in the air. And there was this ribbon they used to draw all kinds of shapes on the floor, and there were these wooden mallets that they juggled like in the circus.
They’d talk and talk without shutting up, while Tutu and Guvi played in the front yard under their supervision. They’d go everywhere together, and they’d always be together. They’d visit the neighbors, the Duysekovs, then the Karabazovs, and Isatay would probably make up new names for Aidana too: Aidaniko, Aidaninje, Aidanesku . . .
Mornings at breakfast, they’d shoot the breeze, and evenings before bed, while cleaning their feet in the basin. And also at night, lying together on the mattress, on the narrow bed, gazing out the dark window at the front yard. And when they went to fetch water at the pump—she and Isatay already went by themselves, without an adult chaperone. And of course Uncle Ayan was going to let Aidana ride one of his horses. He had already bought three more and was training them for the races!
They were going to chat away until their tongues fell off, ignoring her mother’s yelling and Auntie Zaytuna’s shrieks. They weren’t even going to look at anything else!
This was what Marjan was thinking as she cleaned the window. Next she planned on catching Basilio and putting a red ribbon around his neck—she had made the ribbon herself from an old Pioneer necktie that no one needed anymore—the Soviet days were over anyway. When the city people came over, Marjan thought everyone needed to look their best, even a feral beast like Basilio.
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Excerpted from a trilogy of novels by Ainur Karim. The first installment, Who Will Bury You?, will be published in Russian in Winter 2026 by Meloman Publishing.
