Holidays in
Central Asia
—
Busra Erkara
AQUA BLUE, CLAY PINK, AN UNGODLY YELLOW, AND a vibrant red—a mismatched family in a white city surrounded by the desert. Despite the constant whirling of caramel-hued sand, all the cars in this town are also white.
There is only one hotel in town, in its backyard a modest pool, on the poolside, lunch on demand. Drenched in chlorine, the three children and the pretty woman tending them share burgers, fries, and Cokes every afternoon as the hotel draws a shadow over the pool, already lukewarm.
It is more than 40 degrees, and the local women wear emerald green and burgundy velvet dresses, multiple layers of them, actually. They say it helps keep out the heat. They also wear their hair long, past their waist, because the president said so. Like that time he said he preferred all the cars to be white. Walking in pairs, they legitimately look like matryoshkas.
Not that there are any local women by the pool. On the poolside, the woman and children are accompanied by Russians, men with beer gut and women with peroxide hair. The solo chaperone to three children is disgusted by their nasal discharges in the pool. “They don’t know any better,” she tells the children. “Stay away from that part.” She is also mindful of not running up their poolside tab too high, although their host would never mention it. The host is a tall, handsome man, best dressed in every room he enters, an enthusiast of horses, and a future patron of music. The woman loves him with an endless devotion.
In the evenings, the chaperone and kids return to the house, each feeling as if their body was a prune. The house is tended to by an elderly Russian woman, and the children even encounter a private gardener for the first time in their lives. As they eat their strange-tasting dinner (everything here smells a little bit like cat litter, according to child number two), the adults make small talk, and the brief history of this place comes up. “In the Soviet Era, they kept these people drugged out and docile,” the tall man says. “They are too used to that way of life.” At the fast-food court of the only mall in town, the men sit and watch the black flies get toasted in the bug zapper, the woman says. The beauty of the neon periwinkle light is contrasted by the loud crack and imminent death of the flies, according to child number one. They all agree that the entire mall smells like burgers and popped flies, and this is not proper dinner conversation.
But, if you head fifteen kilometers northeast, into the Karakum Desert, you will find the same gigantic flies hovering over whole dead animals lying on some weathered carpet in Tolkuchka Bazar, seemingly getting seasoned in the sand, child number two thinks. Next to the animals, there are stalls where dainty crystal glasses and fine porcelain with Cyrillic stamps are displayed. Something does not add up.
On his first trip here years ago, the tall man says over watermelon slices—the only thing that tastes better than usual in this country—he had to pack rolls of toilet paper in his suitcase because they weren’t sold here back then, in the year after the Independence. There weren’t enough roads either, and as luck would have it, he was tasked with fixing that. He wouldn’t leave before he built an entire white city for the president, who liked him so much that at some point he offered the man an entire ministry.
The president keeps dying his hair pitch black until one day he simply drops dead, as if hit by that same periwinkle light. The pretty woman still loves the tall man and keeps a close eye on the children, as if she were contractually bound. The tall man still spends his days at work, surrounded by horse figurines. The children grow up to understand that they may as well have vacationed in Pyongyang that summer. •
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Busra Erkara writes short fiction, personal essays, and poetry that trace the paths between personal histories and fluid geographies. Her work has appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Extra Extra Magazine, and The Galaxy Gazette.
Website
There is only one hotel in town, in its backyard a modest pool, on the poolside, lunch on demand. Drenched in chlorine, the three children and the pretty woman tending them share burgers, fries, and Cokes every afternoon as the hotel draws a shadow over the pool, already lukewarm.
It is more than 40 degrees, and the local women wear emerald green and burgundy velvet dresses, multiple layers of them, actually. They say it helps keep out the heat. They also wear their hair long, past their waist, because the president said so. Like that time he said he preferred all the cars to be white. Walking in pairs, they legitimately look like matryoshkas.
Not that there are any local women by the pool. On the poolside, the woman and children are accompanied by Russians, men with beer gut and women with peroxide hair. The solo chaperone to three children is disgusted by their nasal discharges in the pool. “They don’t know any better,” she tells the children. “Stay away from that part.” She is also mindful of not running up their poolside tab too high, although their host would never mention it. The host is a tall, handsome man, best dressed in every room he enters, an enthusiast of horses, and a future patron of music. The woman loves him with an endless devotion.
In the evenings, the chaperone and kids return to the house, each feeling as if their body was a prune. The house is tended to by an elderly Russian woman, and the children even encounter a private gardener for the first time in their lives. As they eat their strange-tasting dinner (everything here smells a little bit like cat litter, according to child number two), the adults make small talk, and the brief history of this place comes up. “In the Soviet Era, they kept these people drugged out and docile,” the tall man says. “They are too used to that way of life.” At the fast-food court of the only mall in town, the men sit and watch the black flies get toasted in the bug zapper, the woman says. The beauty of the neon periwinkle light is contrasted by the loud crack and imminent death of the flies, according to child number one. They all agree that the entire mall smells like burgers and popped flies, and this is not proper dinner conversation.
But, if you head fifteen kilometers northeast, into the Karakum Desert, you will find the same gigantic flies hovering over whole dead animals lying on some weathered carpet in Tolkuchka Bazar, seemingly getting seasoned in the sand, child number two thinks. Next to the animals, there are stalls where dainty crystal glasses and fine porcelain with Cyrillic stamps are displayed. Something does not add up.
On his first trip here years ago, the tall man says over watermelon slices—the only thing that tastes better than usual in this country—he had to pack rolls of toilet paper in his suitcase because they weren’t sold here back then, in the year after the Independence. There weren’t enough roads either, and as luck would have it, he was tasked with fixing that. He wouldn’t leave before he built an entire white city for the president, who liked him so much that at some point he offered the man an entire ministry.
The president keeps dying his hair pitch black until one day he simply drops dead, as if hit by that same periwinkle light. The pretty woman still loves the tall man and keeps a close eye on the children, as if she were contractually bound. The tall man still spends his days at work, surrounded by horse figurines. The children grow up to understand that they may as well have vacationed in Pyongyang that summer. •
Busra Erkara writes short fiction, personal essays, and poetry that trace the paths between personal histories and fluid geographies. Her work has appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Extra Extra Magazine, and The Galaxy Gazette.
Website