Griboedova 13
Back in the 90s, my family occupied my long-deceased great-grandmother’s house in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, the former USSR republic. It was a shabby one-story house on Griboedova 13, a street belonging to Khitrovka back then, a poor area on the outskirts of the city. Before I moved into the house to live with my family, my mom who just gave birth to my sister and my father, I had lived at my granny’s, a dozen kilometers away, in a small village. It was then decided it was high time for me to learn how to read and write and so — I was sent to school. The school was about a fifteen-minute walk from the place we lived, and I had to go there every day at 7 am crossing the train track all on my own, because everyone was busy, no one had time for me. I was 7 years old.
As children, we often ventured outside our neighborhood, none of us more than ten years old. We climbed ramshackle abandoned post-soviet buildings and played in deserted construction sites littered with broken glass and discarded wrappings and construction materials, all left there untouched as soon as the news broke about the USSR collapse. People just left. And we were there, kids, barely able to read or write, ravaging through the “disaster zone” as though it was a playground.
All of us kids lived in exactly the same houses, my friends were neighbors, living across the street, just an unbusy road away. A typical Khitrovka house would consist of a small one-story building with one bedroom and a living room, a yard, a kitchen, and a coop, both of which usually occupied the place at the end of the yard. We didn’t have a bathroom. Some people did. But my father never managed to build it. We had a place which was supposed to be a bathroom but it didn’t work. Water was considered a luxury and we had to go pick our water supply up every other day with a trolley to the nearest water pump a few kilometers away. There was a small makeshift toilet near the chicken coop, the one where you had to squat to shit. And that was it.
We shared the house with another tenant, a man of about 60 years old, a life-long bachelor, who smoked a couple of packs a day of Soviet Prima, the only brand of cigarettes available in post perestroika. He was a tall man with a back slightly hunched, sullen countenance and a grey-white hair around his balding scalp. He rarely talked and didn’t seem to like anyone from my family except me.
The next house down the street was occupied by the large Turkmen family of about ten. It was a troubled family. That was what Gulya used to say when she continuously swept the street near the house and saw me walking aimlessly around waiting for lepeshka that her sister was making. Gulya was a lovely Turkmen girl of about twenty-five at the time. She always wore the Turkmen traditional dress and cared about the cleanliness of the place as though she could sweep some of her family troubles away by cleaning and mopping and scrubbing the place every day for half a day. I didn’t realize what Gulya was talking about, what troubles she alluded to until one day, the day I’d never forget, when a police officer came knocking on our door.
There was no one in the house but me, my mom, and my little baby sister. My mom took my sister from the crib and came rushing to the pounding door. I was playing in the yard at the time and didn’t care to look up until I saw the police officer entering our premises.
“Sergeant Polyakov, we have a warrant to search your house.”
“Excuse me, what kind of warrant are you talking about?” My mom said, “Did we do anything wrong?”
“Please, no more questions, this is an order. Stay where you are and let me do my job.”
My mom stepped back letting the police officer in. Terrified. She just stood there watching the police search our house. I ran up to my mother and hid behind her, my sister still in her arms nursing, all of us still.
“Where do you and your husband work?”
“We are both engineers. I am on maternity leave. My husband and our tenant are both at work. But why?”
“We have received information that someone from your household sells heroin.”
“Wait, that’s not possible. None of us ever tried any drugs in our lifetime. I gave birth a month ago. My husband is always at work. He might not be the greatest husband. He drinks. Beer. Sometimes a lot. But drugs? Jesus, never!” she cried.
“Well, mam, you never know with those things. I am afraid we have to start digging up your garden.”
“But my roses…”
“Do you want your husband in prison? Yes or No? I guess not. So stay where you are and let me do my job.”
He started digging. His spade sinking into the dirty ground.
Shing. Shing. With every movement of the shovel.
Methodical sounds destroying flower beds.
My mom started crying. Silently. Tears sliding down her cheek.
The police officer rooted up all vegetation he could get his hands on. As though deliberately destroying the flowers. He kept on digging until he saw that none of it was there and all flowers were destroyed enough.
“Alright. We have to search the fence wall now. This. The one that connects you to the other house.”
My mom didn’t reply. We just stood there. Watching in silence. As though it was not real. I was still hiding behind my mom. Grasping her skirt. Afraid of letting it go.
Sergeant Polyakov scavenged the fence. He kept on looking. When suddenly he stopped.
“Now, keep quiet,” he hushed.
He slowed down walking around the fence as though he heard something we didn’t quite get. He kept on pacing back and forth when all of sudden a tiny white plastic bag dropped down the fence from the neighbor’s side just in front of the officer’s face.
Polyakov’s face brightened up. Beamed as though he caught his prey. He stooped and picked up the bag. The drugs. The drugs he was looking for. Just poured on him like rain on a summer day.
“I guess we’re settled, mam,” he said, now confidently, “Sorry for the flowers.”
We never moved. Not a centimeter. We just watched Polyakov gather his belongings and storm out the door.
The next thing we heard was a police siren and Gulya’s cries for her brother being detained.
