The root: Нәнәй
Нәнәй - a noun, masculine, [neneɪ], Bashkir language
Все заботы о доме, о детях легли на ее плечи, и она, как истинно татарская
all cares for home, for children fell on her shoulders, and she, as verily Tatar(f)
женщина,
woman,
посвятила этому свою жизнь, став отличной хозяйкой дома и прекрасной
dedicated this their life, becoming fine mistress house and magnificent
матерью.
mother.
My great grandfather encloses the afterword of his memoir with these words about нәнәй. He was a politician in the 90s and I spent my long heated summer days of early childhood entangling their legs with my terrors. I wasn’t overly annoying though, except for the nights when I asked нәнәй to sleep with me. Those nights I was scared of the world to end and Vanga’s predictions. Every adult would tell me no-one was going to die because some beldam on her last legs said so on television. A second grader me was incapable of such rationalization. I just prayed to all the forces that my great grandparents would be able to save me in case of apocalypse. I only once found guts to express my frustrations overtly, but нәнәй did not seem to fully comprehend. I continued jittering, she continued abandoning her marital bed.
When they did not want me to understand what they were talking about, they used Tatar. When кортәтәй wanted to say something nice to her or declare his love--generally impulsively and out of nowhere--they would use Tatar as well. In case he’s declaring his love, she would ironically resent, but always in Russian.
The same idle summer of a second grader, my older cousin stayed in нәнәин house. Once bratzs and Jetix cartoons started getting on our nerves, Adelya came up with a game for me. She put riddles on stickers and hid them in the shelves, wrote phrases with fluorescent ink under the paintings. By the end of the game I was to figure out where a kinder surprise egg was (spoiler: in an untouched for years shoebox outside of the house). Everyone likes to play games--they always tell you that during team trainings. Some games can rescue a grieving woman. The most accomplished ones can do that for years.
Woman, mother. Those are the words of a loving husband.
I wish I could find something about her from her. I have never seen such a thing.
Yet I have never been able to unscramble Tatar speech.
Maybe there was more.
Was there a fault in her third language?
She was not shy.
Она танцевала с подругой, такая красивая и так здорово вальсировала!
She danced with girlfriend, so beautiful and so properly waltzed!
Верные друзья предупредили меня: за Фагимой ухлестывает местный парень по
Loyal friends warned me after Fagima hits on local guy by
прозвищу Ишмай.
nickname Ishmai.
In a room full of our family pictures we talk. All the printed photos hung in the order of a family tree: great grandparents from the top, and my cousins and I in the bottom. Great parents gathered the youngest photos possible of every family member, and my 7 years old mom looks cute as she hangs right above my five years old self.
I have no idea when was the last time Neney spoke Tatar, or, god forbid, Bashkir. It has been 3 years since кортәтәй died. The grave of her younger sister was barely cold.
I ask her to tell me something. We sit on her high bed and dangle our feet--hers smell like mummy ointment, mine like nothing at all. It's her second-to-last month, but there is just an unbearable amount of vivacity in the manner with which she exists in that moment. Нэнэй gets livelier when she recollects her childhood playground.
A rain, a several branches, a road of angular rocks, a children - analogical change, linguistics
There is a reflection in her corneas: a game in the middle of nowhere with nothing but natural toys. It is easier to imagine her playing next to her current house, because in that case I am able to compare her to myself-a second grader.
I get rid of her snowy roses, zinnias, coneflowers, scarlet begonias, magenta geraniums, and sandy daylilies. There are only drawling fields of Bashkiria, blurred after a day by the riverside, and a roar of adults from the village on a twenty second of June.
@guzelvolkova on Instagram: “Полнолуние в Башкирии”
full moon in Bashkiria
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@ellallina “Просто прекрасно! Лучший снимок!!”
simply perfect the best shot
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@flortist72 “🆒🆒..”
Бабуля Гуля - a Noun phrase, both feminine, Russian [babulja gulja]
Тогда часто в бытовом общении пользовались русской трансформацией татарских
Then often in casual communication used Russian transformation Tatar
имен.
names.
We are driving a car--нәнәй, бабуля Гуля, Шамиль and I--to Kushnarenkovo. Нәнәй hasn’t visited her parents’ graves in a couple of years and wants us to paint their fences green, to mow the underbrush. The road from Kazan to Kushnarenkovo is only several hours, but we have to stop every now and then for her to walk around. Her legs hurt. She needs the mother ground.
We stop in a village not far from Kushnarenkovo to pay a visit to нәнәины relatives. Her relatives--I have never seen them, or ever heard of them. They live in an actual Russian village: a tiny hillocky road with maybe fifteen houses, each and every one with a toilet in a small booth outside and uneasy electricity. I am only trying not minding it, but нәнәй indeed does not mind the ugly booth, even in her black mat pants suit.
They call her aunt Фая, not Fagima or нәнәй. A simpler, more Russian Фая stuck to her back in the days; and the same happened with granny Гуля. They have long conversations, either in Tatar or in Bashkir. Бабуля Гуля has difficulty separating the two as well. When they talk to her in Tatar, she smiles back, and replies in guilty Russian.
The little girl, Azalea, is trying to reach out to me. We walk on that road of fifteen houses, she tells me about her natural games: a household kitten, a overridden frog, a river, a tags with brother, a learning Russian. How many milliseconds would she need to envision a common day in нәнәй’s childhood? How many would I need to do the same a year after the trip?
Бабуля Гуля has a funny habit of making other people pay attention to the things she notices: Look in the window (it is really the only thing I do while we’re in the car), you see the sunflowers (this is the third field of sunflowers we pass by)? We stop to take some photos. Bashkiria drowses under this yellow blanket in July, and we are here for it. The younger three of us are in awe, for нәнәй this fairytale is natural.
It is a Saturday evening, my great parents have been asleep for more than two years. That is how бабуля Гуля puts it. She rarely expresses her frustrations, but when we sit in banya, she always sheds a tear. A small steam room, and if you touch anything wooden--which means anything, as it is a wooden room--you’ll regret every event that led you to find yourself there. I devour drops of mint flavored sweat that almost rain from my forehead, even though I'm lying down. Бабуля can’t lie when I ask her if there is a small note, a letter, a postcard that нәнәй wrote anytime in Tatar. She doubts there is even one. She remembers the notes кортәтәй was leaving her in books and under house decor when he had started sensing alzheimer gobbling him. They are in Russian. They are for нәнәй, they are not by нәнәй. oh
Мама, мамуля, маман, mom
The fall of 2020 I spend separately from my parents, and so does my brother. We are staying with бабуля Гуля, in нәнәин house. When mom facetimed brother, I noticed the incoming call from ‘maman’, a la francaise. I remember how I changed her name on my phone from ‘мама’ to ‘mom’ once I had started my first year at a college in the U.S. It made sense. Brother says maman looks cooler. Should I suggest him putting әни instead, татарча?
It is ridiculous that I have to check online if әни is indeed mother in Tatar.
On one of the last nights before I say goodbye to mom for a couple of weeks this fall, we sit on her queen size bed with green butterfly sheets. She has mentioned my favorite words ‘random’, ‘trash’, ‘whatever’ that I borrow from English in my Russia speech. She’s said she started using them after me. I can see the pun--she’s a lawyer. But I’m self-conscious and force myself to stop, and fail foolishly.
Mom goes over one of нәнәины stories from her childhood. Нәнәй had to be 4 or 5, and she accidentally broke her mother’s favorite cup. Mom finds it hilarious and incredible that the only solution нәнәй found logical was to hide in barn the whole night. The entire tatar village in the middle of Bashkiria was looking for the lost girl. Нәнәина mother definitely gave her a going-over, though I wonder what language she used to scold her disobedient daughter. What was the language of love and aggression she was used to?
I am ashamed. I soundlessly infiltrate нәнәину kitchen and bedroom to find any note in Tatar. Бабуля has already told me there is none that she can think of.
And she thinks of it daily.
I cast around for a planner or a notebook in the piles.
There is a sly booklet named “Healing spells that the greatest Vanga pointed us at”.
I’d be grateful to find even the smallest ink dot in Tatar. But there are so few dots of any type, as if she had fluorescent ink. The ones that are there can be put into three categories: the medication descriptions, doctors’ appointments, and grocery lists. All in Russian.
One of the planner’s has an inset. I am terrified it is going to be another prescription.
Я всегда мечтала, чтобы у меня была внучка с прекрасным именем Айгуль,
I always dreamed to - me was granddaughter with lovely name Aigul
моим любимым именем.
my favorite name.
A speech from Aigul’s wedding two years ago. The one I missed because I was attending a 4-day English language training for those applying to U.S. universities. Нәнәй crossed off “my favorite name” part. In the text a refrain sounds poetic, it adds warmth, love, care to the meaning--I think. Нәнәй erased it.
She wishes the couple happiness and love, several times, and a long sapid life together. The favorite name of her granddaughter Aigul means ‘moon flower’ and has a turkish origin. Tatar is a turkik language. It is a victory for me, an impalpable one.
Azalea and I stop near the bushes that could lead us to the river and look at the roadway far off. It is later in the evening, and we shouldn’t go far away from the house. Just before we turn back, Amalia and I both stare at Bashkir moon. We both know if we lean closer, we will be able to touch it with our bare hands. I don’t even turn on the flashlight on my phone while we’re walking back. It is that clear.
The root: Нәнәй
by Ellina Efimenko
Ellina Efimenko is an international student from Russia, studying literature at Bennington College. In her academic work she focuses on representation of the heroine in literature and arts.