Pink Shirt

It is summer, and I am at my favourite place: the place I have been going to every year since I was a toddler, except this time it is different. I am here with my boyfriend, who happened to be an Englishmen, which is still somewhat unusual in these parts of the world. The Soviet Union collapsed just a few years ago, and foreign companies are trickling into our little country, one of the newly discovered "stans." I am driving a brand-new car. It belongs to my boyfriend, but whatever, I am one of the few female drivers on the road. Most are men. 

"Let's stop at the local beach for a swim," I say

"Leave all your valuables in the car," beckons Paul. This is not his first rodeo, being a mining engineer, he has worked in all sorts of places around the world. 

"Well, this is my country, and I am safe. Do as you wish and let me be."

We dated now for a few months, and this is our first trip together. Still, he knows better than try to persuade me otherwise. 

Everything around me is familiar: the air is dry infused with local herbs that grow around the lake, hot sand that tickles my feet, well burns more like it, the sound of kids playing somewhere distant and adults talking nearby and her majesty....the Issyk Kul Lake. It is closed with no outflow, seventh deepest in the world and second-largest saline lake after the Caspian sea. Although it is surrounded by snow-capped peaks, it never freezes.  My favourite thing to do is to run towards the lake, pile my cloth near the waterline: I can keep my eyes on them and jump into the lake. This lake might never freeze, yet its water comes from glaciers, so it never fails to make me feel alive! That was fun: now where are my cloth and my purse? Darn, my boyfriend is just too handsome, and I got distracted. As I search for my pile, few locals are looking my way: 

"Have you seen my stuff?" 

"Yes, we saw a young man running away with your cloth, just a few minutes ago. We wanted to flag you but saw you coming towards us anyway." 

"Do you know him?" 

"Yes, he lives not far from here, if you hurry, you might catch him," and they proceed with directions of how to get to his place. 

"Give me car keys." 

"Let it go," says Paul "It is not worth it." 

"Give me car keys, please." 

"I'll drive," he says 

We follow the locals' instructions and see the culprit, running towards his home with my stuff in his hands. Paul stops the car next to him, I jump out of it and grab his shirt. 

This must have been a beautiful shirt at one point, made of cotton, pink with pockets and proper collar. As I grab it, I realize it must have been washed million times by now. It feels like cheesecloth instead of cotton, and it gives. I rip it. I know the feeling intimately. Until recently, I had a few shirts of my own, just like this. My lucky break came thanks to my education and my ability to speak three languages that are in demand. Both of my parents are intellectuals on government salaries, and now our government does not have money to pay their employees. 

Paul is standing with one foot in the jeep and one on the road; his jaw is clenched, ready to get us out of there, should locals decide to join this man. I feel safe, I know that locals would shame this guy instead of joining him.

"Stay here, do not go anywhere, I'll give money for your shirt." I tell the young men, "You can keep what you stole from me." 

Turning to Paul, I say: "I need money, I ripped his shirt." Without saying anything, Paul opens his wallet, and I take $50US. 

 "Here for your shirt. Please do not steal anymore, it will not end well." 

I jump into the car, and we are off. If I did not have the luck of having my mother who paid a tutor to teach me English for the whole year when I was in Grade 11, I would not speak the languages I spoke. Paying the tutor was a luxury my family could not afford, yet my mom saw it as a necessity. Until recently, I strongly disliked every piece of clothing I had. I recently started buying my own cloth and giving the rest of my earnings to my family from my well-paid gigs as an interpreter for Peace Corps, United Nations, and various foreign NGOs. 

As we drive in comfortable silence, both of us lost in our own worlds. After a while, Paul looks at me and says: "That was an expensive shirt." I look up at him, and the way he looks at me tells me he might just know the feel of a shirt that has been washed too many times on his back. I follow his eyes to my clenched fist and realize that I am holding into the pink, worn-out fabric that once was cotton. 

"Yeh, life is a bitch, and then you get a pink shirt," I say, opening the window and letting it go into dry air somewhere in the Northern Tian Shan mountains in eastern Kyrgyzstan.