Boomerang of Happiness - 13

Anna convinced herself she would be miserable in Khorog even before they arrived there. The day after their dreadful conversation Alex went to work and Anna went out and bought a map of Tajikistan. When she saw how close Khorog was to the Afghanistan border and the never-melting glaciers she felt her stomach sink. As soon as Alex came back, she asked him to show on the map where his actual post would be. With a knowing precision, he drew a dot next to a large glacier north-east of a small village called Khidorjev.

“That’s literally in the middle of nowhere!” Anna exclaimed. “This Khidorjev dot is so tiny! What is it, like two hundred houses total?”

“Probably even fewer than that,” Alex replied.

“Oh my god! And where your post is… there’s not even a village nearby.”

“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Alex replied. “It’s a secret military project no one is supposed to know about.”

“So how do people get there?”

“There is a dirt road the shepherds take to the mountains, and they are building another one just to where the post will be. It will be completely fenced off from all humans and animals, to keep the post secret.”

“Is there going to be something like a house or apartment for us there?” Anna asked.

“A house???” Alex chuckled, “More like a make-shift shack for me and the crew of a couple of technicians, yes.”

“A shack???” Anna was horrified. “What about me? I’m not going to live in a shack!”

“Relax, no one is asking you to. There’s an apartment in the Border Patrol housing block in Khorog that they assigned to us. I’m not supposed to stay at the station overnight either, only in case of emergencies or if there are major breakthroughs in the project that will carry me away,” Alex said dreamily.

When it was time to finally leave Dushanbe for Khorog, Anna was pouting all the way there and gave Alex a silent treatment, which he didn’t mind at all. In his mind, he was making some complex calculations for his work project. After a short flight and a drive from the airport to the apartment, they finally were in their new place.

Their apartment was on the second floor of a three-story building, what was called “institutional housing,” as it belonged to the Border Patrol. It housed the military who protected the border with Afghanistan, which was only a couple of miles away at one city’s end. Only the Border Patrol officers, staff, and their families were allowed to live there, while the drafted soldiers stayed at the barracks of the military base next to the border check point. Just like in other institutional housing Alex stayed at, the turnover was quite high as most officers and their families moved from one post to another every two to five years. Similar to their temporary apartment in Dushanbe, their new dwelling was frugally furnished with a double bed, a small nightstand, and a wardrobe in the bedroom; a TV set on a stand, two armchairs and a couch in the living room; and a couple of cupboards and a table with two chairs in the kitchen. The furniture wasn’t new and had some scratches and dents in it, but nothing that couldn’t be taken care of or covered with home furnishings.

Anna gave a brief glance to the apartment, plopped herself on her suitcase in the middle of the living room and said, “Here I am, coming from the luxurious Yugoslavian furniture sets at my parents’ place to this shit.”

Alex pretended not to have heard her remark from the kitchen where he went to get a glass of water. He came out to the living room and said cheerfully, “See, the apartment has everything we need. Now you can make it into a cozy home. Our first!”

“I have no idea how to do it,” Anna replied honestly. She seemed completely deflated when she quietly added, “Don’t even know where to start.”

Alex was shocked. He thought that while living with her mother, an exceptional homemaker, Anna picked up at least some of the knowledge and habits of keeping a home. But seeing Anna so upset and not willing to start a fight over something so trivial, Alex checked his wallet and suggested, “Why don’t we start out by going to the central store and buying basic stuff like bedding, pots, pans, plates and utensils for us to use? That should be fun, shopping together like a married couple that we are, right?”

Anna didn’t say anything. Her lack of enthusiasm and verbal reaction was another shock for Alex. She seemed particularly vulnerable and defeated in that moment, as if she was unable to speak under the weight of her new circumstances. And that was quite something for a chatterbox like Anna. She did, however, stand up and said, “Alright, if you say so.”

“Let’s walk there, explore the town,” Alex suggested, “It shouldn’t be too far.”

They went to the central store on the main street. Khorog was a small city of about twenty thousand people and because it was located at the foot of a mountain, naturally framed by the three rivers running through and around the town, in essence it was only one long main street and several short streets branching off from it in various directions. When Anna realized that as they were walking along the street, she became even more depressed.

“It’s just one freaking long street, we are in a real village now,” she said, looking around. “There are no high-rise apartment buildings here like in other cities. Even in Dushanbe there were tall buildings, in micro-districts and downtown.”

“It’s an earthquake-prone mountainous area,” Alex replied, “Building high in such conditions is dangerous. Imagine all the rubble falling from the height if there’s a destructive earthquake.”

“Well, this is just great,” Anna said, “Now I have to be afraid of earthquakes, too!”

Growing up in Alma-Ata and visiting his relatives in other Central Asian cities, Alex experienced earthquakes often and was quite used to them. He laughed and tried to reassure Anna, “Small earthquakes are nothing to fear and can be even fun, with floors shifting under your feet and things falling and flying around. Major earthquakes with great destruction and deaths are very rare.”

“You don’t say!” Anna tried sarcasm.

Alex ignored her tone and continued, “Yep, maybe one in a hundred years. Like, some of my relatives ended up in Tashkent because they went there to reconstruct the city after the devastating 1968 earthquake that had destroyed half of the city. It was a major all-union effort: every Soviet republic sent construction materials and crews for the rebuilding. Some of the micro-districts, like Belorusskiy, for example, were named as a tribute to that effort.”

“Look, I really don’t care about the earthquakes and their history,” Anna interrupted Alex rudely. “I’ve never been in an earthquake, don’t want to be in it, and am not looking forward to it at all. So you can keep your earthquake encyclopedic knowledge to yourself.”

“Fine,” Alex said in a reconciliatory tone, “I’m sorry, I just wanted to make it light.”

“Well, it didn’t work, alright?” Anna snapped. “I don’t like it here, and you making a joke out of everything does not help.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Alex realized that he’d discovered a second way of shutting Anna up: making her angry. But he didn’t like it.

When they got to the store, they bought basic household items. There was not much choice at the store, like in any other Soviet store that received supplies through some faultily predetermined standards of consumption per person under the planned economy that created permanent deficits of all consumer goods. But even when there was a limited choice, every time Alex asked what color of the bedding or table cloth to buy or what shape and color pattern of dinnerware she wanted, Anna would simply say, “I don’t care. Just buy whatever you want.” So Alex had to make all those decisions by himself and when they finally got everything they could buy, they hailed a car back to their apartment. Anna did not help Alex with any bags or boxes. She simply went back to their apartment, and was pouting for the rest of the day. Alex saw that she was unhappy but he was hoping she’d get used to the new environment, make some friends, and feel better.

To Part 14

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