All Russians Love Birch Trees by Olga Grjasnowa Read Free Book Online

Cem had been born in Frankfurt and raised bilingually. At least that’s what he thought. It wasn’t until a vacation in Istanbul that he realized that he had a strong dialect. He often had to search for words. And so he spent a year at Istanbul’s best university and acquired the refined accent of the city’s upper class. With his relatives he kept speaking in the dialect of the village they came from before moving to Germany. We spoke German with each other—two perfectly integrated model foreigners. As Azerbaijani and Turkish are similar enough that we could understand each other, I told him in my language of the practical jokes we played as kids, and he imitated his parents’ or aunts’ Turkish. Sometimes he laughed about the archaic terms that I used, deducing them from Azerbaijani.
    “What are you drinking?” I asked.
    “Whiskey.”
    “Isn’t it a little early for that?”
    “ Çüs .”
    “When’s your exam?”
    “In four days, but we’re partying tonight.”
    “I don’t want to.”
    “Of course you want to. You’ve been in the hospital all day. Tonight you’re going out with me. Come on, you need it just as much as I do.” He grinned and downed his drink. “But first, take a look at my translation.”
    The waiter put two glasses and a bowl of peanuts on our table. Cem shot a longing glance at his unopened pack of cigarettes. The package warned of death. I knew that Cem was imagining the crackling noise of the plastic wrap, the tearing of the silver paper, the taste of the filter in his mouth, the click of the lighter, and the first inhale. But maybe he was just thinking of the waiter.
    “How is he?” asked Cem.
    “Elisha? Crappy. He’s in a lot of pain. I try to distract him, but it doesn’t work.”
    “Does he get on your nerves?”
    “What kind of a question is that?”
    “Well, does he?”
    I took a peanut, felt the salty taste on my tongue, and chewed it up.
    “I’m sorry,” said Cem.
    CNN was reporting on the Middle East. A demonstration with angry men wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags marched through Gaza. Interspersed were sequences with destroyed houses and Israeli tanks. Cem shook his head and took a sip.
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
    He inhaled through his nose and answered: “War.”
    “I don’t think so,” I said. Cem looked at me, amused. I added: “We won’t know if there’ll be war until there’s a long talk with a correspondent.”
    “Looks like there will be. My father already talked about donating for refugees.”
    “Doesn’t he say that every time?” My voice sounded more aggressive than I had intended.
    “Exactly.” Cem stretched his back, turned his head left and right. His neck cracked loudly. He glanced at the TV, yawned. “Exactly,” he repeated. “In the end, Dad prefers to spend the money on lottery tickets anyway.” Cem laughed joylessly.
    “They always show the same thing,” I said. “Just look at it. Pictures of victims and aggressors in a quick sequence. First the text: the Israeli actions are aggressive and disproportionate. And they go deep into Palestinian territory. Then pictures of victims: maltreated mothers crying for their martyrs on the sunbaked ground, blazing fires and Israeli tanks and checkpoints off in the distance.”
    “And you? You think all of that isn’t real? Don’t be so naive,” he said. CNN showed a blond American journalist gesticulating with concern into the camera.
    “The journalists aren’t even allowed to enter the territory. They stand on the hill in front of it.”
    “And write whatever the Israeli military dictates,” came Cem’s cynical response.
    “If they don’t speak Hebrew or Arabic—”
    “Well, they should take you, then, shouldn’t they?” he interrupted.
    “Asshole.”
    “Don’t get so worked up over it. Not everybody’s underqualified just because they don’t have a double major.”
    I got up and went to the bathroom. I held my hands under the warm water