April 18, 2021: When Borders Meet
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Atyrau, Kazakhstan
Son was due to land around 3 a.m. at Atyrau airport. His flight was sponsored by Air Astana. Father and Mother’s house was in Makhambet, a suburb of apartments a little far from the airport. As someone who had to wake up occasionally at two o’clock during a patient’s heart attack, or who had to get dressed to go back to work at ten at night, Father was able to get up at any time and largely manage it. It was also the time of Ramadan, and so they had to be up in the first place, to eat their first meals before the prayer time. They would have been ready, regardless of the outcome.
The day before they had been consumed with the fear that Son had never made it onto the flight. After Father had observed Mother spending so many days preparing to see Son once more, he wasn’t sure how he could possibly console her. He had, for example, made an attempt to call Son early yesterday, right before his flight left from Washington, D.C., to remind him that he had to have a negative COVID test to board. Son never answered the call, leaving Father and Mother in such a state of tension. They could see on their phones that the flight had at the very least taken off, but they had not been able to ascertain whether or not he was on board. Father had to resort to sending an email. Finally, just a few hours ago, he had gotten a response while Son was in transit in Moscow. As Mother put on her third layer of outerwear to brave the relatively mild April cold they would encounter on their drive to the airport, Father couldn’t stop complaining. “Do you really think we should be spoiling our son this much more by letting him come home without any talk about how little he’s done for us?”
Mother did not put a finger up to Father’s mouth, but she wrapped her white scarf around her head and eyed him fervently. “A father should be happy anytime his son comes home.”
The meaning of duty between a parent and their son had been discussed a copious amount of times by them since Son had first told them he was returning, and on the hour before it was meant to be, Father did not want to have it again. They should have been heading toward the car by now, but instead, Mother was in front of the mirror, practicing her grinning.
— What are you doing? Father asked.
— Nothing.
Mother looked away from the mirror as if she was about to go with Father, only to suddenly turn back and throw at the glass’s edge a giant smile. Father was glad the mirror was inanimate, or such actions would have frightened eight years off its life.
«You are not smiling in front of a camera» Father scolded. «You are smiling in front of a mirror. How self-conscious you are. Don’t train yourself to behave like a foreigner because you want Son to like you. I doubt he will even notice. He will be in the car, and ask, ,,Ake, why do the Kazakhs never smile?“ like he did the last time he came home from university. You’ll see.»
As he said this, staring at the mirror, he had a moment to observe the sweat stains on his white shirt, as well as the Mickey Mouse tie that Son had gifted him as a little boy and that he was still wearing up to now. Very little of Father’s attitude or outfit had changed, but Father knew that after so many years of having to practice that safe yet empty grin he had learned in the West, Son’s face would most likely be a completely different shape. Would Father even be able to recognize it?
They got into the car, turning on the heat as quickly as possible so that the windscreen would defrost. They lived in an apartment complex on the side of the highway. As if in protest, shrubs and wild bushes occupied the lands between the pavement, the steppes, and the dully painted apartment buildings, though they were frozen in the ice of the desert chill. In between this suburb and the airport to the south was unbridled land, where herds of camels roamed. If a road had been built there, Father and Mother could have zipped through the steppe and reach the airport within ten minutes. But nothing in between their suburb and that part of Atyrau had been developed, and so the only option was for Father to drive eastwards into the city, and then southwards. Mother was in the mood to chat.
— Tell me, are there days you wish that Kazakhstan was more like the other rich countries, that we weren’t just a land of horses, airan, and kaimak?
—Roq.
Father thought that airan was wonderful to drink after a hard day at work, and kaimak was a desert that enriched the meal of any festival. Admittedly, horse he got tired of eating once in a while, but during the time of Ramadan, Mother cooked it sparingly. He knew however that these were things that Son would complain about upon his return, and so in a bid to cut the cords in Mother’s head that were making her think that way, he said,
— When Son comes back, you cook whatever you normally do. And if he doesn’t like it, too bad. He can cook for himself. He is thirty. You remember?
— It is going to be our first night together in more than eleven years. You will not argue with him like this. Understood?
— Ya.
Mother turned on the radio, and as always it was on this hideous-sounding Soviet pop.
«Do not turn that on yet» Father said. «It is giving me a headache.»
Mother was snapping her fingers rhythmically. She asked, «Don’t you remember when we danced to this?»
Father did. They had been in their twenties and were just beginning to date. Back then, Kazakhstan was still part of the Soviet Union, hence why there was so much bad music. Father answered by moving his hand toward the dial. Mother slapped it away. She always said it wasn’t right for a husband to deny his partner happiness over such small things. Father let it go, all the while still reflecting on the past. He was remembering that version of Mother. When she was in her twenties, Mother’s face was as gaunt and oval as it was now, but she had significantly thicker black hair, which she would shape into a ponytail, and it would dance with the full force of her body. With age, Mother had lost all of her dexterity. Her shoulders weren’t gyrating like they used to; they were vibrating back and forth. Mother’s hair was covered in her head shawl, most likely so that the extent of her balding would not be revealed. She also had never taken religion so seriously as a young person, Father remembered – she had only started frequenting the mosque after the miscarriage.
The song ended, and so did Mother’s dance. She smiled vibrantly at Father, and Father smiled back, gratitude in the back of his mind that the Soviet era of music was long done.
The next song was not of Mother’s taste and so she turned the radio down. They had turned off the highway and entered into the urbanized part of Atyrau, being greeted on the right-hand side by the cemetery, and on the left-hand side by a hotchpotch of supermarkets, cottages, apartments, and restaurants. Mother said, «Son is coming home to us two days before his thirty-first birthday. It is sign from Allah. We must accept him into our home.»
Father clicked his tongue, to which Mother replied, «Ne boldy?» He still didn’t respond. Mother then said, «You don’t know how he has changed. Allah is there for us at different stages of our life. If Allah is willing to bring him back to us, we should listen to Allah, and we should listen to our son.»
Father chuckled. He was not chuckling at the mention of Allah, which was incendiary, but rather at this idea that Allah was bringing Son back to them as a proudly gay-identifying leftist.
Nonetheless, Mother snapped as if he had been laughing at other things. «You don’t want to help him,” she nearly shouted. “You never did. This is why you both will go to Jahannam.»
Mother was shouting more, but Father already had a mild headache from the lack of sleep and wasn’t keen on having stress compound it. He changed the radio to one of the channels that played relaxing folk music. That did the trick. Mother lost interest in shouting because the music was so heartfelt, and she cooled down, keeping quiet until they neared the airport.
Then, Mother had to say it again. «It’s going to be the first night the three of us will be together in more than eleven years. You will not argue with him. Understood?»
Father groaned. He rolled his window down and gave the guard at the airport checkpoint some tenge.
— What are you going to say?
Father shrugged.
Mother repeated herself.
— We will invite him for breakfast. Then, we will go to the mosque.
Father wasn’t sure what they had to do at the mosque, especially considering that he would have to go to work at the hospital in a few hours, and that uncertainty, combined with the guard taking his sweet time validating the ticket, caused him to yell out of his car, «Hey, we are waiting.»
The guard looked up from his puffy winter ushanka with equally puffy eyes. Father saw it then; he was most likely sleepier than they were, and was working without much going on in his mind.
As he came back to bring the ticket, Father asked, «How long has your shift been?»
The guard was already offended, and so he said, «Long enough. Why do you ask?»
Father wondered if he had said the wrong thing, but played it off by saying, «You look like you have not slept for many days.»
The guard laughed. «How can I sleep when I’m the only person who works out here now?»
That made sense, considering how the pandemic had affected the country, and Father could relate to it, thinking about how much his hospital had changed in just a year. He took the ticket and found a place to park.
Mother said, «We still have twenty minutes.»
—Ya.
—What are you going to say?
Father shrugged. Mother sighed.
—I know what you are going to say. Don’t say it, at all.
Father didn’t respond.
— He will be famished. We will have dinner, and then we will sleep. Then, tomorrow, before breakfast, we will all go to the mosque. It will be before your shift. We must go.
Father responded just by sighing, then he rested his head against the steering wheel as if to sleep. He was thinking about how long of a day today was going to be, and had already been. Suddenly he felt a touch on his back, which caused him to sit up. Mother was giving him a rub.
— Everything will be normal.
Mother leaned in for an embrace.
— Bilemin.
Father looked up from the steering wheel, and Mother held his chin for a moment. Her lips were quavering.
— Do you really think he stands to gain anything more from being at home with us?”
Father looked back in the direction of the airport, and beyond it to the steppes covered in moon shadow and darkness and frost.
— I don’t know.
He genuinely did not. He had run this scenario over and over in his head for the last few days. Father and Mother were of the middle class, but in a country of little income, whereas Son had been working menial jobs in a country with a much higher quality of life than Kazakhstan. From an economic perspective he did not have much to gain, unless, as Father was guessing, he had lost one too many jobs and really had no other work to rely on. Otherwise, from a cultural and lifestyle perspective, he was safer and probably happier wherever he had lived. Probably if he hadn’t been ejected by the latest country he called home, Son would have never returned, and Father understood that. Why would anyone want to live in Kazakhstan? There wasn’t much going on.
Mother interrupted, «Check your phone. Was it delayed?»
Father looked up the times. «Roq. He will be coming out soon.»
They made their way out of the car and toward Arrivals. Mother hadn’t been shivering earlier, but now that she had spent some minutes in the cold she was hugging herself and breathing short, fitful breaths. They were practically the only ones waiting. Atyrau had never been a major destination, but now with the coronavirus most flights had been canceled. Even the cab drivers, usually gathered in their multitudes, no longer prowled the forecourt in search of victims for their inflated fares to the city centre. There were only one or two cabs, and the drivers were inside, sleeping.
Father groaned and said, «I hope the officers aren’t giving him trouble.»
— I doubt it.
— Because he barely has the money for a bribe?
— Because a mother always knows what is happening to her son. He will come in the next few minutes. Watch.
— That’s impossible. I don’t believe you.
Nevertheless, as their boy stepped out, appearing with two men rolling out at least five or six boxes, and him looking very lost and confused, he took one long look outward and made eye contact with Father. While he was growing up Son had much chubbier cheeks, which caused his eyes to look rounder and his brown hair to sparkle. Now he still very much had impeccably styled hair, but because he had lost so much weight his cheeks were gaunt to the point that his entire facial structure had changed. It made Father wonder: had he contracted something?
«My boy» Mother said, and she ran up and hugged him, kissing him all over. «You have gotten so skinny. What has life abroad done to you?»
«I’ve learned to take care of myself» was Son’s answer. That couldn’t have been it. Son had shown them pictures of himself here and there over the years, but he had never looked this emaciated. Though as Son unstrapped the backpack around his chest and put it down to hug Mother properly, Father did see that Son very much still had a belly. That was one thing he had inherited from his paternal side: no matter how much he controlled his diet, he remained a little plump in the middle.
Father went to grab the suitcase that Son was rolling. Son said, «Don’t worry. I’ll take it.»
Father said, «No, I’ll take it.» They made eye contact once more. With the flames behind that gaze still furling, with the eyes as livid as they would have been any other time they were forced to look at each other, Father was convinced. This was very much his son.
Nevertheless, Father could only look up and down this welted candle of a boy. «What has happened to you?» was the only thing he could say.
Son looked away and said, «Nothing.»
He looked so defeated, so dark. Nothing could hide the truth of whatever it was that must have assuredly happened. But Son would not talk about it here, so Father guided the airport workers rolling Son’s boxes toward their car in the parking lot. As they were putting the boxes in the car wherever they could fit, Father took one long look at Son. He wanted to say something, but felt it wasn’t appropriate.
In any case, Mother had taken the back seat alongside Son and was talking so much that Father wouldn’t have had a chance to interrupt.
— My sweet son, my beautiful son. What do you want for dinner? How you have changed so much. I don’t know a single thing you will want to eat. We will talk about it now. And we will talk about what else you are doing. What brings you home after so long? That is a silly question, ignore it. Just talk to me. My son, how I have missed you, I have missed you so much.
She kept talking on and on like that, even after Father started driving. Son wasn’t looking in the mood, but as Father adjusted his rearview mirror he couldn’t help but take in the scene of it, note its normality, and he felt a smile in his eyes. Son was home, at last, and nothing about it was out of place.
They journeyed through the steppes and the suburbs, the fleeting flourishes of frost. The dawn came, and a new day started.