Free The Mountain and the Wall by Alisa Ganieva

recognize her. And even after they finally got back in the jeep and started back toward the village, the driver pulled over onto the shoulder, and the people in the back seat raised a fuss, with Chakar’s honey-toned voice squealing loudest of all, “ Ch’a, ch’a !”
    Asya was terrified, and was about to jump out of the jeep and head off for home on her own, but everyone soon calmed down, and they started back down the mountain. They finally made it back to the village after dusk.
    Asya’s anxious grandfather was waiting for her at the road when they got back, and the “boys,” as Chakar called them, launched into explanations and reassurances, blaming everything on that k’akh’ba and her wiles. Chakar herself slipped away, flashing her duplicitous eyes.
    At home Asya’s grandmother was waiting, armed and ready. She cursed and scolded, and pelted Asya with copper pitchers and embroidered pillows trimmed with pearls and stuffed with Grandmother’s braids. By the next day the entire village was buzzing with rumors about how so-and-so’s daughter, which is to say so-and-so’s granddaughter, had gotten into a jeep with some young men and had gone on a joyride into the mountains, and with Chakar too, that trollop—a decent girl wouldn’t even let herself be seen in her company, let alone engage her in conversation.
    Many were the mothers who erased Asya’s name from the lists of potential brides in the village that day. Claiming illness, the girl was absent from the godekan for an entire week.
    But these tribulations were behind Asya now, and as she hurried down the street with her jars of cream, the only things on her mind were the phrase “donkey salt” and Patimat’s son.
    5
    The waterfront was deserted. Shamil walked over to the old plastered railings in front of the black railway embankment; looking over the gleaming tracks he saw the chaos of buildings along the shore, and beyond them the dark, restless blue waves of the sea. In the distance to the left, brightly colored balloons floated in the sky, dangling their long, tangled strings, and the Test Your Strength machine was clattering on the midway, serving an as-yet invisible public. From his right came a vague rumbling sound, blending in with the hum of the surf. Shamil hesitated briefly, then headed off in that direction, looking now and then at the foamy crests of the waves, the narrow strip of sandy beach, and the pile of black stones visible on the other side of the tracks.
    Gradually the rumble became a plaintive melody, punctuated by clapping and exclamations of approval, and before long a crowd came into view. People had gathered around a little man wearing a wine-colored Circassian coat with a cartridge belt across the front. The man was singing, accompanying himself on a chungur he had picked up who knows where. He stood with his eyes closed, oblivious to his surroundings. His voice vibrated sweetly, the mulberry-wood body of the instrument throbbed and sighed, and the hem of the man’s Circassian coat fluttered and danced in the sea breeze. Next to him stood a man with a mustache, who smiled and extended a black microphone first to the bouncing strings, then to the chungur player’s jutting chin, then back to the strings. Shamil wandered over to the crowd and stood to one side, staring at the musician’s restless hands.
    The song ended, and the listeners applauded and shouted in Lezgian. Bulky men with microphones appeared on both sides of the singer, and they too began shouting, waving their free hands in the air.Their voices poured out of a big speaker that had been set up under an anemic little tree. The crowd listened in silence, sighing like a hundred-mouthed monster.
    Shamil didn’t understand Lezgian, but he lingered and listened. Now, above the heads of the performers, a huge poster appeared, showing a stern-looking bearded man in a white bashlyk and a big papakha with a green ribbon tied around it.
    “Magomed Yaragskii?”