Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire by José Manuel Prieto

Author:José Manuel Prieto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 1999-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Hearing that song—which a Turkmenistani peddler was playing while selling melons to the customers at the bakery—was like a flash, taking me back to the Grand Bazaar, the afternoon that V. searched me out on Stockis’s yacht, desperate for my help, and I took her there, hoping to lessen the sting of my refusal by finding some merchandise she could resell in her village in Siberia.

What we found were heaps of figs piled on counters, dates swarming with bees, and a little clothing, too, shoddy stuff. Some Turkish creations that had already infested Russia, smuggled in, a veritable plague (I thought this a fair assessment). Nothing to her taste (or mine) until a red dress caught our eyes—we walked toward the rack without talking, both thinking this could be good. Needing to feel the fabric. I let her go first. She reached the hem to me, spitting a pistachio shell into her free hand, preparing for a more serious inspection. She rubbed her hand on her skirt and pretended she was going to rub it on my suit, too. I stepped back and said, “Hands off,” with feigned annoyance, before we shifted our attention to the dress. She asked the shopkeeper to get it down; he handed it to her still on the hanger; she held it in front of her, chin on her chest, and said to me in a confidential tone, concealing her interest from him: “With all the dermó (shit) they’ve got here, this isn’t too bad, don’t you agree?” I did. Could she try it on? Just looking, she told the shopkeeper, who wasn’t impatient, not pressuring us at all. Just the opposite: a Turkish trader behind his mound of merchandise, wielding the hook for getting down his dresses, and sweaters, too, the hideous acrylic sweaters hanging from the same rope. Only this dress was nice. She didn’t necessarily believe the label, of course, Donna Karan, but if she could get a good price, considering that the seams were fairly straight, and the fabric, and the red looked colorfast … V. broke into rapid Turkish.

“Bu ne kadar?” How much is it? I gathered she asked, and I repeated in a low voice: Bu ne kadar? Bu ne kadar?

“Cok pahadi,” Way too high, her scornful response. Cok pahadi. Cok pahadi. I, of course, would have added a few words: “Cok pahadi. Are you nuts? At that price, no way!” etcetera. That Cok pahadi of hers was just a start. Although the price actually wasn’t high at all.

V. gave a snort and pulled the dress off the hanger. She looked it over carefully, the finish or seams, the darts, which should—and did, quite nicely, I soon saw—show off her shapely breasts.

“Too much, no way,” she should have told the shop boy, but she decided to give him a little more line, to set the hook, which he took calmly, no extravagant display, no wailing—he looked young, but people caught here, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, had been in the markets for centuries.

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