Baby Steppes

Dear readers, if you read my last post you know that I don’t always know what to write, or how to begin writing, or how to finish writing. I tend to get daunted by the idea of writing a ~post~ here, thinking that it has to be a well-researched piece of journalism. My mom is leading the charge of family members who want to hear more from me, and she suggested that I take a different approach—take some baby steps. Or, in light of the name of the blog, baby steppes. I think she’s right. I’d like to still make monthly-ish long posts about interesting dynamics and experiences I’ve had here, but I like the idea of shorter pieces as well. in truth, these pieces may not always actually be shorter, but they will be somehow different. They might be more creative, more strange, more fragmented, or just more poorly written. In any case, the goal is to relax and write something, to share with you some snapshot of some moment. I don’t know how many of these I’ll do, but I hope you enjoy.

Baby Steppes 1: Neighbors.

My apartment is full of knocking. Actually, my building is full of all sorts of sounds. Water gurgles in the pipes, an old woman sing/chants in the morning, people murmur, mumble, and yell, boots and slippers stomp and shuffle up and down the stairs. But more than anything else, my building is full of knocking. Uncles, cousins, sisters, mothers-in-law, nephews, debt collectors, and beggars knock on all manner of doors at all manner of hours. I have wondered many times how these people—many of whom appear to be close relatives—don’t have each other’s phone numbers. I have wondered why they have to knock every time. I don’t know the answers to these questions. All I know is that they knock. All the time.

One of the doors that attracts the highest volume of knocks belongs to my next-door neighbors, who share the first floor with me.1 I’ve counted at least seven people who I suspect live there:

1. Shoira, an elderly woman.

2. Another elderly woman

3. Another elderly woman

4. A young man

5. Another young man

6. A young woman

7. An elderly man

On top of these seven, there seems to be a rotating cast of elderly women and young men, constantly circulating through the apartment. Sometimes they yell at each other.

One night, the knocking persisted longer than usual. Through the peephole in my door, I saw the elderly man, bedraggled, knocking on the door. “Shoira!” he pleaded, banging on the door, “Open up!” Cursing in Uzbek and Russian, he knocked on the door for about ten minutes before giving up and shuffling away.

It was quiet for two weeks. The knocking retreated to a drizzle, soft splashes above me and at my sides, the occasional young boy carrying messages, food, and clothing between aunts and grandmothers.

I was cooking Borsch with Daniel in my kitchen when the drizzle turned into a thunderstorm, a tidal wave, a frantic pounding and yelling in the stairwell. The muffled sounds of domestic conflict to which I long ago became accustomed swelled into a roar, a man and woman shouting passionately at each other. Out of pettiness and curiosity, I abandoned my beets and ran to the peephole. At first, I didn’t see anything. Taking it as nothing more than an especially loud fight taking place in the stairwell rather than in an apartment, I went back to my cooking.

Suddenly, a horrific scream cut through the building, sending chills through my body and bringing me back to the door. Through the little hole, I saw a seething crowd gathered around my neighbors’ open door. Men shouted and gestured, babies cried, and one unseen women continued screaming bloody murder. Two police officers pushed through the crowd, into my view. Moving from the door to the window, I peered outside towards the courtyard, I realized that we were in the midst of a full-scale commotion. it seemed as though the whole neighborhood had gathered outside, shifting uneasily in various stages of grimace and distress.

Through the chaos, the unseen women continued to unleash the kind of shrieks that can only come from some unmeasurably deep well of pain. Something terrible was happening across the hall.

Eventually, the storm subsided.

The next day, I came home from getting a chicken for lunch2 and saw a sheep tied to a pole blocking the entrance to my building. The group of young men who usually hang out in the courtyard were building a fire, looking somber.

An hour later, I came outside my building again. The sheep was gone.

As I got into my taxi, I saw the group of men huddled around a mass of black fur, hanging from a tree across the courtyard.

My taxi driver told me that this type of slaughter—and the subsequent meal—can be performed in connection with any number of special events, including marriages, births, and funerals.

For two days, the door across the hall stood open, and visitors came and went freely, without knocking. I had tested positive for coronavirus by this point, leaving me constrained, yet again, to peering through my door’s peephole.

My neighbors’ door is closed now, and the usual rhythm of knocking has returned.