Hand wash
by Intizor Otaniyozova
Dostoevsky depicted the eternity of hell as a bathhouse. It turned out that a man was sitting there all alone, in the hot darkness, surrounded by cobwebs. I remembered the bathhouse as a place of peace, almost freedom. In 2012, during my last school summer, I thought: just a little more, and a completely new life will begin. My parents also understood the moment of transition—otherwise, why this trip with my father to his native Khorezm? It was my return after about seven years of absence, but little had changed in the family home. The walls and ceilings were painted with intricate patterns; instead of small dark windows, there were open doors; hard endless work in the field, in the garden, in the barn, in the rooms; pilaf, salad, green tea, watermelon, melon for dinner. Everything had familiar outlines, but I forgot their essence, the traditional way of life replaced by the usual enslavement. It seemed to me that no one here was capable of understanding me: my grandmother unobtrusively tried to find me suitors, the relationship between my uncle and his wife was a living illustration of life not only before the feminists but even before the suffragettes, and my dad suddenly became such a stranger, almost unrecognizable. The only consolation was my sister, who was the same age. Together with her, I fed the cows with hay, pumped water from the pump, cooked dinners, went to visit, washed dishes with defective cotton, picked tomatoes, and always laughed at some nonsense. I lasted a week at my companion's frantic pace, after which I began to get tired of the bites of various insects, the scorching heat of the semi-desert, the monotonous food and, in general, work. So when, after one of the dinners, we went into a dimly lit, warm, humid bathhouse, in which the laundry was already soaking, the happiness was sincere. This hour or even two will be just the two of us, without clingy flies and incessant instructions from adults. I wanted to help her, but there were only two basins—one for washing, one for rinsing—so I just squatted down opposite her, studying how to wash off dirt by hand. Here she picked up a piece of laundry soap, here she began to rub a stain on the collar of her shirt, here more and more foam appeared. I took out my push-button phone, turned on the previously downloaded album of Adele’s 21, and began to explain to her the meaning of the songs. Not that I myself understood most of the words, but how I missed music, films, and the Internet! In my interpretation, it turned out to be a story about a girl from London. The guy just dumped her, breaking Adele's heart, but she knows one secret that can ruin his life. More precisely, his and the girl he is now dating. Rumor has it that she is half his age. People started saying that Adele and her ex-boyfriend started seeing each other, when suddenly they started whispering that Adele had actually met someone. Basically, if you take everything you hear on the streets of London at face value, you will go crazy. But there is no smoke without fire. Adele's boyfriend can confuse anyone; he has a version for everyone. It turned out that the girl had been acting very strange lately. Very ungrateful, considering the state she was in when they first met. He helped her get out of it, and now that she has gained strength, it turns out he does everything wrong, he’s childish, irritable, et cetera. Maybe she is right—otherwise, why couldn't he stand even a couple of days without her? Adele called herself, and it seemed that the world had been restored, but now both stopped understanding: Is this love or just dependence? They began to quarrel. In the end, the couple decided to take a break. However, it did not last long. Yes, trusting someone with your heart is a difficult task, no one is perfect, and you just have to accept it. But he was able to name someone else, not Adele, as the one. It was not a surprise, but on the day of the celebration, something clicked in her brain. At a wedding in Birmingham, the bride was killed with a .44 revolver. Moral of the story: “It is better to feel pain than nothing at all.” My sister seemed carried away by the songs, reacted emotionally to the plot twists, but at some point she stopped washing. Around the same time, I stopped “retelling” the album. We left the bathhouse, hung out the laundry, and went to do other things. Sometimes I regret that I talked so much then.
Hand wash was first published in Russian, in the feminist volume Prichinnoe mesto by Fem Writing Courses Almaty
Image by Elizaveta Dushechkina for Pexels
Intizor Otaniyozova (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Central Asia. Themes of her research are identity, ecology, feminism and Beyoncé. She has participated in exhibitions in Asia and Europe, and was published in literature volumes. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Side Chicks is her debut feature length documentary film in development.