refilled, with a graceful, surprisingly authoritative gesture. She follows the movement with interest, and he catches her gaze; and pauses on it.
“Do you particularly love Chopin?” she begins, but the ambassadress is again at her side, wanting to introduce her to someone, and Anzor Islikhanov, making his courteous bow, moves off.
He keeps her in his sight lines, though, she’s sure of it. She can sense it out of the corner of her eye, is half expecting him to rejoin her and resume their conversation. He comes up as the party is thinning out, and says he would like to show her something of interest while she’s here; to give her something in return for what she’s given him; all of them. Would she like to see one of Bulgaria’s old monasteries tomorrow? The drive is not too long, and he thinks she would find it worth a visit. She calculates whether she needs to practice before the following day’s concert, and decides it is not strictly necessary. Surely, she can break her regimen once in a while. She says yes, she would like to go.
The drive toward the monastery takes them up a steep mountainous road. Anzor Islikhanov navigates his tiny Fiat smoothly over the winding ascent, slim hand turning the wheel with a steady sureness. Not a pianist’s hand, it is too narrow for that; but the fingers are long and mobile. Not the hands of hardship either, or of violent wreckage. He seems less intent on engagingher attention than yesterday, or perhaps more comfortably in charge; and she feels herself relaxing into the snug capsule, into a suspended mood. She gazes at the landscape, and gives herself over to the sheer interest of the unexpected, of not knowing what will happen next. Is it her illusion that the landscape here has a freshness and craggy vigor that is also expressed in the robust yet elegant silhouettes she has seen all around her, in the lively Bulgarian faces? Some morphology of the place, reiterated in its human inhabitants. The deep evergreens mass into a dense forest. Anzor tells her he loves this mountainous country because it reminds him of his childhood. He grew up in Grozny, the now ruined city; but his grandparents lived in a mountain village, and he visited them there often—a landscape like this, except more vast, more austere.
“We used to play games of calling out echoes when we were kids,” he says, and briefly turns to her. “I really felt sometimes I heard spirits speak. I thought the mountains were inhabited by strange creatures—everywhere, just out of sight. Now there’s literally almost no one there. Now the villages really are inhabited by ghosts.”
The car swerves round a sharp turn and jolts her forward; but Anzor regains control almost instantly. He puts a protective arm against her, and his hand grips the wheel more tightly. They stay silent for a while.
“Do you miss Chechnya very much?” she asks, once her balance is recovered. She doesn’t know how to talk about such things, doesn’t want to commit an indelicacy. What does the remote country mean to the man next to her …? She ponders his face, as if she could penetrate to the landscape through him. The mountains of the Caucasus, high ridges; eagles; a sparse population. And now the ruins, the refugees, the rubble …
“One always misses a country which has been … wounded,”Anzor says. “And my country has been very hurt. Very damaged.” An odd expression crosses his face, a setting of the jaw, a hooding of the eyes, as if to fend off vulnerability, or a private anger. She feels as if in the very hooding of his eyes, something has been unmasked.
“Not that I didn’t want to leave when I was young,” he resumes. “Or at least to travel. I felt so … restricted. To tell you the truth, I was almost excited when I was forced to leave. I was going to see the world.”
“And now?” she asks.
“Now I’ve seen it,” he says tersely. “Now I only think about my country. My mission.”
She is taken aback by
“Do you particularly love Chopin?” she begins, but the ambassadress is again at her side, wanting to introduce her to someone, and Anzor Islikhanov, making his courteous bow, moves off.
He keeps her in his sight lines, though, she’s sure of it. She can sense it out of the corner of her eye, is half expecting him to rejoin her and resume their conversation. He comes up as the party is thinning out, and says he would like to show her something of interest while she’s here; to give her something in return for what she’s given him; all of them. Would she like to see one of Bulgaria’s old monasteries tomorrow? The drive is not too long, and he thinks she would find it worth a visit. She calculates whether she needs to practice before the following day’s concert, and decides it is not strictly necessary. Surely, she can break her regimen once in a while. She says yes, she would like to go.
The drive toward the monastery takes them up a steep mountainous road. Anzor Islikhanov navigates his tiny Fiat smoothly over the winding ascent, slim hand turning the wheel with a steady sureness. Not a pianist’s hand, it is too narrow for that; but the fingers are long and mobile. Not the hands of hardship either, or of violent wreckage. He seems less intent on engagingher attention than yesterday, or perhaps more comfortably in charge; and she feels herself relaxing into the snug capsule, into a suspended mood. She gazes at the landscape, and gives herself over to the sheer interest of the unexpected, of not knowing what will happen next. Is it her illusion that the landscape here has a freshness and craggy vigor that is also expressed in the robust yet elegant silhouettes she has seen all around her, in the lively Bulgarian faces? Some morphology of the place, reiterated in its human inhabitants. The deep evergreens mass into a dense forest. Anzor tells her he loves this mountainous country because it reminds him of his childhood. He grew up in Grozny, the now ruined city; but his grandparents lived in a mountain village, and he visited them there often—a landscape like this, except more vast, more austere.
“We used to play games of calling out echoes when we were kids,” he says, and briefly turns to her. “I really felt sometimes I heard spirits speak. I thought the mountains were inhabited by strange creatures—everywhere, just out of sight. Now there’s literally almost no one there. Now the villages really are inhabited by ghosts.”
The car swerves round a sharp turn and jolts her forward; but Anzor regains control almost instantly. He puts a protective arm against her, and his hand grips the wheel more tightly. They stay silent for a while.
“Do you miss Chechnya very much?” she asks, once her balance is recovered. She doesn’t know how to talk about such things, doesn’t want to commit an indelicacy. What does the remote country mean to the man next to her …? She ponders his face, as if she could penetrate to the landscape through him. The mountains of the Caucasus, high ridges; eagles; a sparse population. And now the ruins, the refugees, the rubble …
“One always misses a country which has been … wounded,”Anzor says. “And my country has been very hurt. Very damaged.” An odd expression crosses his face, a setting of the jaw, a hooding of the eyes, as if to fend off vulnerability, or a private anger. She feels as if in the very hooding of his eyes, something has been unmasked.
“Not that I didn’t want to leave when I was young,” he resumes. “Or at least to travel. I felt so … restricted. To tell you the truth, I was almost excited when I was forced to leave. I was going to see the world.”
“And now?” she asks.
“Now I’ve seen it,” he says tersely. “Now I only think about my country. My mission.”
She is taken aback by
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