Recently, one guy, in particular, was most successful in gaining Maya’s favor – Lev Klyuchitsky – the head of a construction site. They met about three months ago at a party organized on some insignificant occasion by a handsome radiologist with good connections in business circles of the city. Klyuchitsky immediately attracted her attention with his elegant appearance and subtle request to get him a couple of dozen syringes for insane amounts of money. He finally won her over, though, when he showed his appreciation by giving her the appointed amount of money together with an elegant cognac set made of Czech glass. Then he repeatedly took Maya to the only restaurant in their town, named after one of the European cities. However, quickly getting fed up with their specialties and signature drinks, he hinted that they could have a much better party at her house. Maya did not say anything, and Klyuchitsky began to present her with gifts that were necessary both for her future and current apartment as if preparing Maya’s place for the time when he would occupy his rightful place there.
One evening, a dropside UAZ drove over to Maya’s place and the apple-cheeked driver brought in some boxes, bundles and other parts of a customized kitchen set to her modest apartment. The driver installed a shiny sink, hung and stowed some cabinets, adjusted the drawers and disappeared with an expression of deep satisfaction on his face. The kitchen that was empty up to that moment became radiant with crisp white enamel, suddenly turning into a cooking laboratory of some kind…
Three days later, another driver – a construction battalion soldier – brought in a huge carpet into the room with a similar smiling and shining face on him, and Maya was amazed at its size and beauty, as well as the excellent quality. Having spread the gift along the plain plank floor, Maya just stood there, contemplating the autumn landscape stitched on a deep blue background for a long while, as well as the incredibly convincing maple leaves, blades of withered grass, crimson forest and black water. After that, she gently stroked the springy surface of the carpet with her palm, treaded upon it with her bare feet, pleasantly drowning in soft thick wool. With sadness, anxiety, and hope, Maya realized that there was a different life just a short distance away, the total opposite of hers: rich and beautiful, and, maybe just like the one from her dreams.
Klyuchitsky took his time with the announced party and did not insist much, but the events unfolded in such a way that Maya herself had to invite him to visit. At the beginning of summer, she received a telegram saying that her mother was on the verge of death, so she was forced to urgently come back to her native village, lost in the middle of nowhere. Upon learning of the grievous event, Klyuchitsky in no time got her a ticket to Moscow with a transfer in Tashkent. Were it not for him, she would have to bump along on the train for many days, exhausted from the inconveniences and doubts: will she arrive in time? And on the day of departure, he sent her a car, which took Maya directly to the airfield. Two weeks later, when she returned from the funeral, Klyuchitsky met her at the Tashkent airport, which was quite unexpected for her, and booked her a single room in the Dustlik hotel. In the evening, he brought a luxurious dinner to her apartment, then disappeared and returned only early in the morning to accompany her to their plane. Maya calmly and happily slept in a cool hotel room and met her guardian angel in the best of spirits. They arrived at the airport by taxi and a couple of hours later they were at home.
From all this, Maya concluded that Klyuchitsky’s business ties went far beyond the limits of their town, and this further improved her suitor’s image in her eyes – she saw him more as a patron, rather than an admirer, although one who was always ready to help out, to lend a hand and to bless her with gifts. Still, the attention of a handsome man and Klyuchitsky was undoubtedly handsome, fed her vanity and, furthermore, she felt that with his help she would be able to get the key to making her cherished dream come true at last. But Maya also understood that fair’s fair, and therefore on the day of her homecoming she invited Klyuchitsky to come to her place next Saturday since her flatmate – the surgical nurse – would be starting her night shift then. Generally speaking, her flatmate was not a hindrance, as they lived in a two-room section, and both had a separate room with a separate entrance, but postponing Klyuchitsky’s much-anticipated rendezvous was also a tribute to her coquetry and the age-old love game that Maya played with all her wooers.
On Friday, when Maya decided to do a spring cleaning in her apartment, a sandstorm began and the town got enveloped in a thick raging shroud of sand and dust. Maya was always both frightened and at the same time exulted by the riotous winds, which, for an instant, succeeded in tempering the heat – the key bane of the desert.
The heat season in the Kyzyl-Kum desert begins in May and lasts until the end of August. Spring here is short, bright and fast-paced. In April, the sun shines soothingly, and the gray steppe instantly comes to life, its tens of kilometers getting overgrown with light green umbrellas of ferrule, growing to a half-meter plants in a matter of a few days. Curly crowns of separate plants are spaced several meters apart, as if planted on a unique planting grid by a skilled gardener, providing each root with its own patch of moistened reddish-yellow sand. Therefore, the plain, covered with a ferrule, becomes a patchy yellowish-green carpet, resembling a giant leopard skin. The specific smell of the ferrule attracts clouds of insects: flies, bugs, midges, spiders and all sorts of strange small creatures that cling to fleshy stalks and swarm up and down the firm branches.
The sand in this time of year is fresh, nice to look at and to touch; it seems life-giving and fertile. Indeed, if you look closely at its surface, you can see the tiny little needles of grass and even tinier, smaller than a millet grain, white and blue flowers, piercing through the reddish soil moved by an unknown, miraculous force.
The ravines are especially spectacular at this time, especially in those places where the narrow hollow-ways join them back to back. Here, they seem to escape the wrinkled mountains right into the flat plain and turn into the wide channels of mythical creeks and streams, with bottoms strewn with coarse sand and gravel, their oval banks covered with spongy loess. On this soft, dry soil, the tiny flowers are growing densely, forming conglomerations of fanciful pink, green and white patterns, resembling flower beds in the parks of southern cities, those embellished with dates and slogans. Vibrant green islands of plant life can be seen on the pink rocks of the granite massif, towering above the plain. Its ancient stones are already stricken by a mesh of cracks, formed under the influence of tectonic processes and weathering; in the course of the winter, they’ve accumulated the scant moisture, and the grass found it, sending down its clingy roots and fibers into the granite.
On the plain, on the slopes of the hills and in the hollows you can come across small clearings of orange tulips: they are smaller than the garden variety, but they are pretty to look at, too. There are also white mushrooms in the desert, their stout hats ungainly spreading along the infirm sand as if someone scattered pieces of melted cheese with the careless hand, and now it dries and cracks under the rays of the scorching sun. People say that five years ago the tulips covered the desert in a thick carpet in the spring, and the mushrooms were there in spades. It is easy to believe that, because even in the first year of her stay here, Maya found both mushrooms and tulips in the neighborhood, when she wandered alone through the strange, never-before-seen lands. Now, urban folks have to drive tens of kilometers out of the city to get mushrooms and flowers.
In April, the air is clear, the sun does not burn yet, and the desert tan is every bit as good as the seaside one. For Maya, every April weekend was a holiday. With a book and a little cold water in a thermos, she went to the mountains and there, hiding out in some dead gorge, she would strip naked and bathe in the gentle sunlight. Within two or three days, her skin acquired a pleasant golden-bronze color, much to everyone’s surprise during her future holidays at the seaside.
Once, when she was sunbathing on a small plateau near the